The Exile
by Archontor
Summary: In the aftermath of the Earth Empire's defeat Kuvira has been exiled to the furthest, coldest corners of the globe. She and Baatar are now forced to find a way to fit into a world that rightly distrusts them and to find a way to repent. If they can.
1. Chapter 1: The Cold Equation

The sky was grey and so bright with trapped light it hurt to look up, the sea was as clear and as smooth as glass and you could see for miles. There were no sounds to hear on the bending-powered catamaran. Aside from Asami squeaking every time the boat tipped one way or the other.

"Are you sure you want to be here?" Korra asked. As they neared the Wedge.

"Absolutely. Where you go I go." Asami said, pulling closer to her again. For warmth she said, even though a Sato industries cold-suit could keep her perfectly clement in a blizzard, much less an arctic summer.

"I still think Su should be here." Lin said, leaning heavily against the railing of the traditional water tribe skiff. She looked different out of all those layers of metal. She kept her arms close to her body and her stance steady. She was guarded, as if compensating for her perceived vulnerability. Yet at the same time she seemed more relaxed than usual though that was a low standard to meet. "I know Kuvira hurt her, but…. I don't know, all those years I spent angry at her, I don't want her to make the same mistake I did."

"Wow chief, that was really insightful of you." Korra commented from her and Asami's impromptu loveseat, a bench at the front of the central hull.

"If a word of that leaves this boat I'll arrest all of you." She snapped quickly, perhaps a tad affronted.

"That's more like it." Asami teased. Then clutched Korra as the boat shifted. Korra just laughed.

"We're almost there." Tonraq said from his place at the top and rear of the skiff, moving it through the windless seas with his waterbending. Just at the edge of the horizon they could see it. A massive pillar of ice jutted out of the polar sea. It was an iceberg so large and so stationary that it was charted on Tonraq's maps, in cartographical terms it was a single white speck someone might try to flick off as snow, yet stood before its colossal majesty now it seemed too permanent a fixture for that, as if it was always there and would always be there. As they grew closer to it they could see a simple wooden dock affixed to the base of the iceberg and a series of walkways up to the top made out of carved ice and wood.

They pulled up to the docks in time. A pair of White Lotus Sentries were waiting for them in the alcove of their quarters, carved into the ice just behind the docks. They dressed thicker robes than usual and fir lined capes as well as scarves and gloves. Korra could feel Asami's hands grip tightly against the sleeves of her parka as they bumped against the docks, yet as they disembarked she maintained a perfectly elegant composure as she deftly climbed onto the docks.

"It is an honour to have you here, Chief Tonraq of the Southern Water Tribe, Chief Beifong of the Republic City Police, and of course Avatar Korra." The taller and thinner of the two sentries said, he bowed at every announcement. His voice was high and educated with the slightly more pinched accent of a Northern Water tribe citizen.

"And Asami Sato of Future Industries." Korra interjected. She notably did not bow back.

"And Asami Sato of Future Industries." The shorter, sturdier sentry said. "Do excuse us, Sentry Mirak and I are local folk, the social elite of Republic City aren't so easy to recognise." She said in what seemed to be a genuine apology. Korra smiled a bit and then bowed.

"Now then Avatar, not all of us can warm ourselves with our breath, let us get to the compound." Mirak explained as he picked up a traditional lantern of sealskin and bone with a wick of twine and whale fat that left a sweet, greasy smelling odour behind him that reminded Korra of home. It also reminded Asami of burning tires after a particularly exciting experiment with Varick.

They climbed up the steps briskly until they were at the top of the iceberg. A gradual depression gave way to medium sized cabin below the line of the surrounding ice to keep it out of the wind. It was perfectly traditional in nearly every aspect, made up of bone and wood with packed snow piled against every side but the door to keep in heat. However Asami recognised the high sheen of the metal fittings and nails on it as being platinum and the panels of the transparent dome on the top of the hut had the slightly blurry quality of high durability plastic. This was definitely the right place.

"I take it you'll want to speak to her in private, we'll go back to our quarters." Mirak said as he and his assosciate broke pace with Korra's group and stepped back small distance they turned and headed back down the steps.

"If I had to guess, that isn't the White Lotus' best and brightest." Asami commented as they knocked on the door.

"I should hope not." Lin grumbled. She clutched her fur lined coat closer to her body and her cheeks were wind pinched and bright red.

"Thank you for coming." Bataar Junior said hesitantly. He had switched back to the angular green robes of a Zaofu native, though the ornamental metal armour was replaced with leather or bone and the cloth was much thicker with a tighter weave and more layers. He himself had gained weight in confinement and grown out his hair. Heavy platinum spectacles with thick lenses of high clarity plastic sat on his face. Lin thought he looked more like his father than when this all began "I know this was an unusual request."

Tarloq barged in first. "I don't know why we didn't do this sooner." He declared with a slight sneer as he pushed aside the sealskin tarp in front of the door and surveyed the hut. The cooking area was currently holding some sort of stew that filled the home with a savoury meaty smell that he hated to admit seemed quite appetising. He could tell this was the home of outsiders. An excessive amount of furs on the wall and floor yet with none of the decorations of the water tribe like scrimshaw statues or woven tapestries. Instead photographs and paintings of Earth Kingdom landscapes sat in rosewood frames until they formed almost a mosaic of portraiture. Incense sent by an old loyalist from Omashu filled the air and a number of lanterns on the shelves gave it a warm, weak light aside from warmth of a fire place to the back of the living room. "You ask me this little love nest is already too lenient."

"Because after the Equalists it was declared illegal to remove someone's bending." Lin explained. "Reiko had to do some cajoling with the council to accept it on a voluntary basis."

"Welcome." A familiar voice said. As she stepped out of the adjacent room. Korra could tell by the beauty spot just under her right eye that it was definitely Kuvira but aside from that she was a completely different woman. Like Lin she had been without her metal armour though unlike Lin she did not draw in on herself to overcompensate and instead walked lightly and precisely, as if walking a tightrope. Like Bataar she had fattened up, though much more so until she looked like some small child's s favourite aunt who snuck them treats when no one was looking. Her hair was long and thick and unbound, hanging over her back and down her front, it was well groomed and glossy. Her clothes were loose and heavy with traditional kamik boots she had paid one of the sentries to buy for her.

She approached Korra briskly. After Korra had gotten over the shock of the former Empress' appearance she reacted on instinct and drew on her breathing as if preparing to release a blast of air, or fire. She bowed deeply until she was almost waist height and stayed like that until the count of three before slowly looking up to the avatar. "I would like to formally apologise for everything I put you through." Kuvira said softly, extending a hand, still in her favourite gloves.

Korra hesitated for a moment. Kuvira's face dropped to a slight pout, she was hurt but not surprised and insisted on holding her hand out until the Avatar would take it. After an incredibly long twenty seconds Korra did indeed shake it. Kuvira's grip was gentle, but not limp allowing the Avatar to dominate.

"Please, join us." Bataar said, as he gestured to the large rosewood table behind a curtained archway. A platinum candelabra had already been lit and the wax had started to run onto the matching plate beneath it. "It'll be nice to have someone else sample our cooking besides Mirak and Nona." He said cheerily.

"How do we know it isn't poison?" Tonraq asked as he sidled up to the much smaller academic. Bataar gulped and looked as if he feared for his life.

"Because we'll be eating it as well." Kuvira interjected as she walked over to the kitchen. "One of you can help me serve it up, if it'll make you feel better." She said, crouching gracefully to retrieve a set of bowls made from halved nautilus shells.

"I suppose I could do that." Asami volunteered as she joined the corpulent conqueror by the cooking pit. Kuvira put the bowls down and stiffened up for a moment, she could feel Asami looming over her. When Kuvira rotated to face her Asami was scowling and she wasn't crying but only by a thin margin. "Let's get this clear, Kuvira, I _don't_ care how sorry you are and I _don't_ want to talk to you, I'm just here to make sure you don't hurt Korra as well." Asami seethed.

Kuvira looked down, ashamed. "At the trial they told me your father was in one of the Hummingbird mechs. I-"

"Don't you dare try to apologise." Asami commanded.

"I wasn't going to." Kuvira said emptily as she ladled out one bowl of soup. It was spiced prawn with a bit of imported chicken-pork stewed in with wantons and noodles. And a total lack of poisons. "I know what I did was wrong and I can never repair the damage I've done or repay it. When this is over I don't expect to be forgiven. I just want people to know I regret" She explained. She could barely meet Asami's glare. Her hateful gaze softened but it was still there. She stepped back and gave Kuvira room to work.

Bataar had taken his preferred seat, it was high backed with a platinum frame and green cloth, almost like home. It was to the farthest wall so he could see the whole house he built. Most of his view was consumed by Tonraq who was still staring daggers at him. Korra seemed indifferent. His aunt almost seemed as if she were just studying him, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.

"So….you and Asami?" Bataar said uneasily.

"What of it?" Tonraq interceded. He lowered his posture as if ready to pounce across the table.

"You both look so much happier. I know having Kuvira with me is the only thing that's kept me stable this last year."

"I-"Korra reared up a tad defensively. "We are happier….thanks….I guess"

"Bataar, your mother won't say it but she misses you." Lin explained from her seat, just to the left of him.

"I know, aunty, but" Bataar's voice dropped to a little whisper as he leaned across the table. "Kuvira's trying really hard to put on a brave show for you. Some days she doesn't get out of bed, some nights she can't go to sleep, either she goes days without eating or she gorges herself." He gulped. "Some nights when she thinks I'm asleep I can see her walking along the edge of the ice….if I wasn't here I think she would have gone off already."

Korra's face softened a moment, she recognised the feeling.

"You really do care for her don't you?" Lin asked, perplexed. Bataar just nodded.

"She shot you with the biggest cannon in human history!?" Korra exclaimed.

"But I always do the washing up." She called from the kitchen. A moment later she came out carrying three bowls on a wooden platter, Asami carried three more by her side. Asami passed the bowls out to Lin, Korra and Tonraq. She took one bowl for herself from Kuvira's tray. She just about trusted Kuvira with her life at least, just not her lover's. "And I do the cooking four days out of seven." She said, kissing Bataar on the side of the head.

"I'd call that an extra punishment, to be honest." Bataar chuckled. The rest of the dinner party tried not to gawk at last year's most feared and powerful couple as they teased each other over soup.

Kuvira settled into her meal quickly with a pair of rosewood chopsticks. Korra picked at hers and Asami attempted to keep an eye on the couple whilst she slowly took in a meal that was slightly too spicy for her liking. The only sounds in the hut was the wind rattling over them and the sound of the fire crackling in the background.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Lin said, breaching the awkward silence. "Having your bending taken away, you never stop feeling like there's a piece missing." She declared recounting her experience of Amon's technique.

"I get along just fine without any bending." Asami observed, smirking to Korra.

"I know right, they're always looking after us, as if we're helpless kids or something."

"Oh you should have seen Korra in the spirit world, any time a spirit bigger than my arm came by she'd stand guard." Asami responded with a slightly fond chuckle. Korra just blushed and clasped her hand.

"I can top that." Bataar proclaimed happily. "Kuvira tried to assign me a fifty man guard back when we were….trying to conquer….." The momentary good humour had been extinguished. He cleared his throat awkwardly and silence resumed.

"To answer your question chief Beifong I'm sure. I can't earthbend now, at least after the process is completed I can go back to Zaofu." Kuvira said sombrely. "If Su will have me."

"She might not." Korra warned.

"Perhaps, but….it seems as if it might help to show everyone that I'm committed to peace."

"I suppose the sooner we do this, the sooner we can get it over with." Korra said quietly. She put her chopsticks straight up in her bowl

Kuvira stood up as well, slower, there was still a hint of regret in his voice. "Okay." She said in a long deep sigh. She walked ponderously into the living room and kneeled with her back to everyone. "Can we do it here?" She said, her voice was slightly quaky and she looked up at the dome above and the bright grey sky.

Korra stepped up and followed after her, little more keen to carry out the procedure. She turned to face Kuvira, standing over her. "You know I never tried this without my past lives guiding me."

Kuira exhaled through her teeth and rolled her shoulders a bit. "Please Avatar, I can only be brave for so long." She said, perhaps a bit frightened. The others turned to watch the two of them.

"Okay." Korra said uncertainly. "Here goes." She placed a hand on the light chakra, the forehead, and the air chakra over the heart. Korra's eyes and mouth lit up for a moment with a cold, white light. The entire room hummed and the air felt electric. Kuvira gasped, she could feel something wrong and cold and painful. It was deep down in the marrow of her bones, in the grit of her teeth, in the deepest part of her skull buried in the folds of her brain. Something we being bent, twisted and stretched until it snapped. She sighed and then flopped over backwards. Her eyes were open, glassy and unfocussed. Her breathing was shallow but it was there.

Bataar cleared the length of the room faster than any of them had expected he might and lifted Kuvira up into his arms. She was as limp as an octopus washed up in the tide. She could feel the furs on the floor of their home and the little damp specks of melted frost flecked onto it. She felt arm over her back and shoulders holding her up on a narrow lap. As her vision readjusted she saw Bataar's face, and then the look of worry on it. Her skin had gone clammy and cold. She managed to mutter something and then slipped into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2: The Gilded Cage

When Kuvira awoke she was in a small compartment. It was much too warm and the cot she had woken up in was much too hard. The cabin was just a cramped windowless shoebox of a room, nothing but bare metal and rivets. But it was metal. Kuvira sat up too quickly for her head and spent the next half a minute dazed before she could stand up unsteadily. She looked around, Bataar was slumped in a folding canvas chair, deep asleep. Other than that here was no one around. She had to know. There was a particularly rusty bolt in one of the buttresses on the wall in front of her. She took a basic stance, extended her hand and tried to twist it with her bending. The feeling was gone, that indescribable sense of force jolting and twisting between her and her target had left her, in its place was just the feel of unused muscles flexing with a degree of difficulty.

"I knew it." Asami yelled as she barged into the room. Bataar snapped awake, almost jolting his glasses off of his face. "The first thing you did was try to bend your way out."

"I-I" Kuvira stammered, she backed away from the taller captain of industry until she was in the corner. Every instinct in her said to fight, rip the floor from under her, bind her with metal cabling, pelt her with rivets, all impossible now. "I just needed to know." Kuvira finally managed in an uncertain whisper.

"Do you really expect me to believe you wouldn't have tried to break out if that screw had moved?" Asami pressed, for an answer Kuvira did ot, herself, know.

"It doesn't matter." Bataar protested. He stood up beside Kuvira and grabbed her hand tightly. "She can't bend, she's not a threat to anyone."

"Thank you, Bataar." Kuvira whispered tenderly.

Lin walked in, garbed in her jet black armour again. She carried in her hands a pair of shackles. "According to the pilot we're about three minutes out from Zaofu, time to get ready." She explained as she entered the room.

"How long have I been out?" Kuvira wondered aloud as she rolled back the sleeves of her robe.

"About a day and a half." Lin said. "Junior hardly left your side." Bataar just smiled broadly when Kuvira looked to him. She gasped a bit as the cold metal was pressed against her hands and fixed on soundly. She studied the shiny, spotless sheen of the cuffs and the slightly milky silver colouring to it.

"I don't understand this is platinum." Kuvira observed, bewildered.

"You have a lot of enemies in Zaofu, one metalbender with a grudge and…." Lin made a crunching noise in the back of her throat. "They'd be calling you stumpy for years."

The speaker in the corner of the wall crackled into life. "All hands brace for landing." The pilot reported blandly with a slight hiss of static. A moment later they were overcome with a falling sensation whole as they were pulled in to a swift landing, the ship bonced and bucked a moment as it made contact with the ground and then sat still.

"That would be Dockmaster Yuma." Kuvira said deadpan as they let go of whatever they were hanging onto. "Always liked to really lash them down."

The airship's engine's powered down. The whoosh of the rotors and the thrumming of the engine box gave way to silence for a moment. And then Kuvira heard it, the throng of a crowd screaming and shouting on the other side of the gondola's hull.

"Well, the moment of truth." Bataar said with a slow air of trepidation. "Nervous?"

"Terrified." Kuvira replied.

They both followed Lin and Asami out into the main room. It was a slightly rusted out water tribe airship and judging by some of the fixtures it had rolled off the assembly line when Avatar Aang was still a young man. The windows of the gondola revealed the Zaofu Aerodrome and the crowd assembled to 'welcome' them. A sea of green robes and red faces seethed before them. A peach splattered against the viewports, and the another fruit, and then another.

"That's a pretty angry crowd." Korra said, slightly amazed. "I've had some rough receptions but that is really something."

"Asami." Tonraq said as he stood up out of his seat. He put his hands on the younger, shorter woman's shoulders, completely dwarfing them. "Look after her will you, I have to get this crate back to the south pole."

"I will, give Senna my best." She replied politely and then dipped her head respectfully.

"Tell mum I said hi too." Korra said perkily as she placed herself by the hatch of the airship.

"Okay I'll go first." Lin said commandingly. "Kuvira and Bataar can stand in the middle, Korra and Asami you can stand at the rear."

Kuvira gripped Bataar by the hand, it wasn't quite clear who was leading who but they managed to pull each other to the endge of the door. Kuvira stood by the door and took one last deep breath. "No place like home, eh Bataar?" She said with a smile that was packed full of fear where happiness had tried to be.

"We'll be fine." He said warmly. A rather hard looking pineapple bounced off the hull of the airship. Battar gulped.

"Time to face the people Kuvira." Asami said harshly, arms crossed.

Lin opened the door to reveal the welcome party. Su Yin was there strictly out of necessity, and it showed on her face. Bataar Senior was with her, a pensive sideways pout sat on his face as he waited for his namesake. Opal was present in her wingsuit, the same as ever whilst Bolin stood with her dressed in a green instructor's robe. Stood at his brother's side was Republic City's youngest Police Captain, Mako. His uniform was a dull black and double breasted with badges and medals emblazoned across his chest. His burnt red left arm was garbed in a leather hand support and he clenched it and unclenched it by habit.

If the crowd was furious before they were incensed with rage now as Kuvira stepped out onto the metal platform. Without the dome's protection against the elements the once glimmering city's metal had been tarnished and dulled. In the distance the city of Zaofu's great lotus-like domes were still being reconstructed, jagged scaffold skeletons jutted from incomplete 'petals'. The flash of photographers at the front of the crowd dazzled her. Out of the click and flash of shutters a whole pomegranate collided with her head. She would have been knocked off of her feet if Bataar hadn't been able to catch her.

"Guards, control the crowd!" Mako ordered. The security forces took their time corralling the mob to the platform exits. There were precious few guards left in the city and they dragged their feet somewhat to defend the 'Great Uniter' at the behest of a foreign commander.

"Junior!" Su called as she ran up to embrace her child. She snatched him quickly enough to snap his hand out of Kuvira's grasp and clutched him tight enough to crush the wind out of him. "Kuvira." She said more icily.

"Su, we should get to a secure location, a meeting this open is inviting assassins." Lin reported rapidly, her head was on a swivel watching for any possible angle of attack.

"Fine." The matriarch huffed. "We can discuss this in the train."

Kuvira just stood there dumbly with fruit flesh sticking her hair to the side of her head. The procession marched quickly into the transit station. Security had been able to keep the train platform properly deserted.

"Hey, Bolin what's the uniform all about?" Asami asked as they settled into the little train car.

"After we took down the Colossus Su hired me to teach some of her new recruits lavabending." Bolin explained proudly.

"That hotfoot thing, was very impressive Bolin." Kuvira said warmly. "I don't mind telling you I was _not_ looking forward to the repair bill after that." The rest of the group tried not to look too surprised by a deposed dictator making small talk. They failed.

"No." Su said faux-casually. "I suppose you were all out of domes to melt down."

Kuvira looked at her for a moment but she didn't speak.

"Er…..so how's the new promotion Mako?" Korra asked in a semi-tactful attempt to divert the conversation. "Feels like just yesterday you were giving guys parking tickets."

"Hey, traffic patrol is an important duty." Mako snapped.

"Didn't you incinerate a bunch of my parking tickets when we were fighting Amon?" Asami asked with a slightly nostalgic tone to her voice.

"You did what?" Chief Beifong said in a hard, flat entirely deadpan voice.

"It-I-I, we were in the middle of a war, I did what I had to." Mako protested.

The rest of the group broke out into a raucous laughter. Meanwhile Su eyed Kuvira still, watching her shift uncomfortably in the seat, listening to the rattle of her manacles and keeping a very keen eye on the offensive hand she intertwined with Bataar Junior's.

"You know Junior..." Bataar senior said to his younger namesake. "I was thinking this might be a chance to make the domes better than they were the first time, I could sure use your help."

He briefly considered correcting his father but Bataar supposed there were worse things he could be called besides Junior "I'd like that, dad." he said softly.

They sped down the tracks until they were at the Beifong estate. Like the rest of the city it was still rebuilding, Su had not chosen to prioritise its repair as a show of solidarity to her people.

Kuvira stepped out to a quiet estate standing clean and proud in the totality of her view. On the overlook Huan was shaping one of his sculptures. He watched Kuvira as intently as an owl-hawk, and as he was watching her made a particular effort to shape one of the outward pointing beams into a downward angled shard. In Huan's case that could be anything from a mortal threat to a heartfelt attempt at reconciliation.

Wing and Wei descended from the steps. Though they had not seen fit to wear their armour to greet them they had both attached their cable spools to their belt. Kuvira noticed the edges of their arm guards extending and sharpening into equilateral blades.

"We refurbished Aiwei's villa." Su said as she led the procession along the edge of the estate to the furthest corner, tucked far out of view. The original villa had been blasted apart a few years ago, then rebuilt as another guest house and then remodelled again for their impending arrival. Bars covered the windows and each of the doors had been reinforced into heavy, blast resistant slabs. Thick, high walls surrounded the path up to it and a few guards stood at the ready. Even they scowled at her, evidently they had not volunteered for this detail. "As a part of your custody you aren't to leave this house without my express permission under any circumstances."

"Thank you Su, I understand." Kuvira said politely. She walked up the hill and through the thickly wrought gates until she was inside the Uniter's Estate. She noted that the gate and the fences were just plain steel, not platinum. Any metalbender in Zaofu could get in but only she could be kept in.

The front door was a heavy, solid thing which Su unlocked with a precise application of metalbending. It groaned open to reveal a slightly Spartan home, and yet it did indeed feel like home to sit amidst the metal and hard angles and electronics of her native Zaofu.

She and Bataar walked hand in hand through the front door and then it shut behind them.

"She didn't even say she was sorry." Opal huffed as the door slid shut.

"That might be my fault…." Asami said nervously. "When she tried to apologize I may…have snapped at her."

"And people say I'm harsh." Lin observed.

Su looked thoughtful for a moment and then turned to Korra, by her posture it was clear she was worried. Now that that's over I'd rather you stayed here for the moment Korra, you too Lin." She explained softly.

"Anything you need, Su." The Avatar replied boldly.

"Saikhan can look after Republic City a while longer, what's the problem." Lin replied a moment later.

"Since the domes went down I've been trying to improve relations with the neighbouring states." Su Yin explained. "Both the President of the Ganjin and the Zhang Chieftain are telling me that a few local warlords in the area have been banded together by the remnants of Kuvira's armies and they're on the move this way."

"You're worried about another attack?" Mako intuited.

"Yes." Su answered direly. "And without the domes any attack could cause horrible civilian casualties. I can't put my people through that again."

"Maybe General Iroh could send help?" Asami suggested.

"No, the United Forces are busy with peacekeeping missions and humanitarian aid all over the continent." Lin explained.

"Let me guess, Raiko's being useless as always." Korra groaned.

"I've been out there, the situation's way too tense for them to spare the resources." Opal replied.

"Well I guess me and Asami could stay in one of those big guest houses." She said looking over to one of the shining steel micro-mansions across the way.

"Yeah, we'll suffer it." Asami grinned.

"Alright! Team Avatar is back and bigger than ever!" Bolin yelled as he drew in whoever he could for a big, sloppy hug that captured Opal, Mako, Asami and half of Korra, it would have ensnared Lin too if she hadn't been able to hop backwards out of the way.

A large radio set sounded through the villa living room. "And today Zaofu receives its prodigal daughter. Kuvira and her paramour Bataar Junior have returned from their year in exile after Avatar Korra succeeded in removing the dethroned dictator's bending. We've been getting your messages listeners and all I can say is public disapproval is mounting. This has been the Zaofu hourly, now back to our entertainment." The soft crooning of a local songstress followed.

"I forgot how much I missed the radio." Kuvira said with a slightly sad smile on her lips. She was sat on a wide green loveseat looking through the barred windows to a blank patch of grass and the afternoon sun poking over the walls of her prison. Now that there was weather for it she had plans for a proper garden, one with vegetables and flowers, the sort she always said she'd try to craft in her retirement.

"Still, the news is a bit depressing, not that I'm surprised?" Bataar said as he pressed his shoulder up against her. In response she leaned her head against his until she could feel his hair tickling against the skin of her neck. "Is it everything you hoped for."

"Better." Bataar could feel a warm tear drop off of her cheek and onto his forehead. "So much better."

It was late in the night when Kuvira rolled out of bed for a midnight trip to the toilet. She huffed at the sight of a light shining weakly through the doorframe, it would take a while to readjust to lights that didn't burn themselves out. She hissed slightly as her bare feet collided with the cold metal of the floor. Fur rugs, that was what she missed about her polar home.

"I should ask for some slippers." She muttered to herself and then slid the door open, it squeaked a bit as its hinges rubbed together. Bataar snorted in his sleep but didn't wake. She walked out into the main corridor. The flickering light of a fire stretched from the open door of the bathroom opposite them to the tips of her feet. The door was ajar and so was the window, its bars had been cut off and the remaining nubs were still glowing hot.

"Intruders." She gasped. On instinct she tried to draw some metal out of the walls to protect herself. The realisation that she was just flailing her arms hit her and then she gulped nervously.

"Where is that tyrant?" A voice huffed.

Kuvira thought. The only phone was in the living room down the hall. She could either fight a firebender in the nude, with only her bare hands or she could run to the phone and let the assassin roast Bataar alive. No choice at all really.

The assassin heard something and looked up sharply. He gasped as he saw Kuvira in the mirror over the sink. "Murderer." He yelled, and then whirled around to shoot a streak of fire at her. Kuvira ducked out the way, and nearly stumbled off her footing. Fifty extra pounds and a lack of practice had taken an edge off of her flexibility. She dodged another fire blast clumsily and collided with the wire thin man shoulder first. He slammed into the doorframe and then fell onto the hard tiles of the bathroom with force enough to knock the breath out of both of them. He kicked her away, hard enough to crack her nose and fill her vision with spots and her mouth with the metallic tang of blood. She reached a hand to the rim of the sink for something to fight him with and then shattered a shampoo bottle over his head, he grunted in pain and then squealed like a hog-monkey as the thick liquid seeped into his eyes. He struck blindly with a fire blast that singed the cartilage of her ear and the wall behind her.

"You're going to pay." The assassin shouted. He was young, his voice still cracked slightly as he yelled. In the light of the fire she could make out pallid skin, silky black hair grown wide and wild with a few patches of stubble. One eye watched her, golden irises surrounded with bloodshot veins flickered open as he wiped the goo away as best he could. "For everything."

"Asami, Korra!" Mako yelled through the door of their quarters. "We got a call from Bataar, someone broke in."

There was a clattering and the sound of cloth fluttering before the lights came on and the two of them staggered out. Asami was dressed in a simple blue nightie that was a size too big for her and Korra adjusted the fit of a reddish silk slip with lace trim. Korra was slightly breathless and Asami's makeup had smudged a tad.

The detective looked them up and down and then smirked a bit. They met up with Bolin, Opal, Su Yin and Lin on the run out of the estate.

"Seriously Su, you've got to invest in carpeting, metal is way too cold at night." Bolin griped on the rush out to the compound.

"The domes used to keep the warmth in." She shivered back.

At the walls of the villa the night guard was there to meet them. "What happened." Lin asked, immediately.

"I dunno." The guard said and then took in a deep yawn that wobbled his uvula. "I fell asleep."

The living room sofa had been upended and one of the table lamps was shattered. Kuvira had donned a soft green nightgown and held an icebag to the side of her head. Her nose was broken and both her eyes were ringed with deep, tender bruises. There was blood streaked all up her hands, none of it hers.

"Spirits, that must have been a rough fight." Korra observed.

"You should see the other guy." The punch-drunk Kuvira slurred. She raised a wavering hand and pointed to the body slumped up against an armchair. There was a horrific gash running from his jawbone, down the length of his neck and stopping at a jag of glass lodged in the collar bone.

"I think she's concussed." Bataar said fretfully.

"I could heal her." Korra offered.

Bolin yelped and hopped back. "Oh no." He whispered.

"Bolin, what's the matter?" Opal asked as she held onto him.

Bolin scrabbled over to the body. "I know this guy."

"What?" Lin said as she crossed the room to look at the body. He wasn't clothed like a professional assassin. His belt buckle was too shiny, the soles of his boots were too hard and his clothing was too loose.

"Yeah, this is Baraz, me and Varrick met up with him when we quit Kuvira's army. He said he escaped from one of those re-education camps" Bolin's voice sounded hurt. He spun around and pointed and accusatory finger at Kuvira. "One of your camps."

"So, another of Kuvira's victims." Su remarked dryly.

"I-I had no idea, I was defending myself!" She yelled. She stood up off the edge of the loveseat. "I was just trying to keep Bataar safe."

"There you go again." Su protested. "Just defending yourself, just doing your duty, like we're supposed to feel sorry for you." She yelled, her voice broke slightly towards the end, as if pained. "The girl I raised would never have hidden behind a bunch of flimsy justifications like this."

"Su…" Lin whispered in surprise.

"You didn't raise me." Kuvira said, blankly, she could hardly believe she said it.

"How dare you? I loved you like a daughter!" Su shot back, agahast.

"Mother please, she's had a rough night." Bataar said, as he moved to stand between the two of them.

"_Like_ a daughter, but I'm still not, you made that clear enough!" Kuvira croaked. Her whole face hurt as it scrunched up in turmoil. Tears began to well in the corners of her eyes. "You never gave me the Beifong name, I never lived at the Beifong estate, and you never once told people I was your daughter." She sniffed heavily, the tears were flowing swiftly. The once composed general was just another broken soldier crying over a rough childhood. "I idolized you Su, I would have been proud to be your daughter, but I was just another hobby for you, one you discarded when it got a bit inconvenient for you."

Su's lip quivered before she locked it into a stiff scowl, and balled her hands into fists, the whole house groaned with the sound of metal settling. She thought to say a great many things before she settled on one in particular. "And does any of that excuse what you put this young man through?" She finally said in a surprisingly serene voice.

Su walked out, followed by Opal and Bolin, then Mako, then Lin and finally Korra. As the dawn's light slowly krept into the house it was just Bataar, Kuvira, and the man she had driven to murder.


	3. Chapter 3: Morning In Zaofu

05:33

The Zaofu Security Building was an angular metal compound built high into the Metal Mountains, sitting watch over the entire city like a an owl atop its perch. Deep into the mountainside, beneath battlements and barracks and thousands of guardsmen was their forensics department and in one particularly well ignored part of that department, deep underground sat the offices of the Zaofu coroners.

"Why do I have to be here." Bolin muttered emptily on the low metal bench outside of the coroner's office. Opal sighed and held onto his hand.

"Because you're the only one who knew the assailant." Mako said, crouching to meet his brother's eyes. "Look, I know you don't want to be here Bo but we need to get to the bottom of this.

"I've completed my examination, you can come on in now." A surprisingly lively mortician said, leaning a head out the frame of her office door. She wore a white rubber smock and black gloves, both streaked with blood.

The office was nothing but cold metal walls reflecting cold crystal lights and a desk full of ridiculously out of place office toys. And a slab. Over a large black grate there was a slab, and sat upon that slab was the body of Baraz. His face still bore the injuries of his fight with Kuvira, injuries that would never heal. His body was naked and covered in a white tarp with his feet hanging off the end, a tag around his big left toe. His kidneys, liver and lungs sat in sealed jars on a shelf and samples from his teeth, hair and nails sat in small test tubes.

The doctor pulled off her apron and both of her gloves. "Doctor Fang, yes that's my real name, no I'm not a mover villain." She said, presenting a soft hand that smelt of disinfectant and trapped sweat.

"Chief Beifong, what do you have for us?" Lin said formally.

Bolin kept his eyes on Opal, watching her with sad tired eyes as if frightened to look at anything else in the room.

"We've run all the tests we can run for the night, if you want a more in depth analysis it'll have to go through the specialist labs." She reported dryly as she sat down on the cold hard edge of her deck. "Oh would anyone like a sweet by the way." She rattled a glass and gold bowl full of hard sweets in wax paper wrappers. Bolin pinched one, then another for Opal, though he ate both.

"Your report, Doctor Fang." A slightly exasperated Mako pressed.

"Oh, oh yeah sure it's just usually me and the corpses and they aren't very useful company." Fang said, a bit dejected before she cleared her throat and stood up straight. "Based on a chemical analysis of his kidneys and liver he has recently taken up serious substance abuse including alcohol, cactus juice and over-the-counter sleep medication. Based on his x-rays I'd say he's suffered a few broken bones even before the fight with Kuvira. Ribs, jaw, knuckles, I'd say he's been getting into a lot of scrapes." She moved over to Baraz's body and moved his right arm out from under the cloth. His knuckles were bruised black and a few of his fingernails had been removed for investigation. Tattooed, rather poorly into his arms were the characters for a name. Ahnah. "Do you recognise this marking?" Fang asked.

"Ahnah, it's this girl he was with, they escaped the camps together." Bolin said softly.

"I wonder where she is?" Opal pondered aloud.

"Perhaps we should alert Security, if they're this close Ahnah might come looking to avenge him." Mako recommended.

"Good Idea, Mako, we should look into it immediately." Lin said supportively. "Doctor Fang, I'd like a copy of that report if you wouldn't mind." The doctor nodded and passed her a folder.

"We should probably get home." Bolin said, making for the exit. "If I don't get enough rest I'll have to cancel my sessions." He explained as he and Opal disappeared out the door.

"Bolin." Opal called as she chased after him. "Bolin!" She repeated, louder and then put a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah." Bolin said a bit too loudly and then turned his head slowly, he was red faced and slightly watery around the eyes. He didn't stop walking, in fact he quickened his pace as if fleeing from something. The few clerks and orderlies stuck on the midnight shift cut him a wide berth. Even afraid and on the edge of tears he wore an Instructor's uniform and that commanded enough respect to move out of his way.

"I've seen you fight a hundred metre robot without breaking a sweat but you looked like you were going to throw up in there." Opal pressed, easily keeping step with him.

Bolin stopped so quickly Opal had taken two steps before she realised. He slumped himself up against the wall of the corridor and looked over to her. "When my parents died they needed someone to identify the bodies." He finally said in one long sighing breath. "Mako said he could do it alone but I was too scared to sit with the officer so I ran in after him."

"Oh Bolin, you didn't…" Opal exclaimed, she was holding onto him now.

"I saw them, all black and brown and shrivelled. And that smell…." His nose scrunched up and he looked physically ill now, though he managed to hold onto whatever was in his stomach. " You know I can barely remember what mum looked like but I can still smell her sometimes." He finished emptily.

"Well you've got a new family now." She said, wrapping her arms around him. "And we're all so glad you're here." She said into his ear as she gripped him tighter. Bolin breathed deeply, it didn't smell of burning or death or preservatives. It was that mix of scented conditioner and the ozone tang of high altitude that stuck to Opal's hair.

06:02

Lin and Mako occupied an elevator bound for one of the higher offices of the security force. It slowly climbed a few dozen floors up to the highest reaches of the compound.

"I must say Mako you've been impressively impartial about this whole thing." Lin said, staring straight ahead at the high shine of the elevator doors.

"It's not easy." Mako said holding up his burnt arm, it still hurt when he flexed at and when he tried to firebend out of it. "Baraz is on that slab because of Kuvira's labour camps, because he had Fire Nation ancestry, if I had been born anywhere but Republic City that could have been me."

"You and Bolin versus the entire Earth Empire; I'd give you even odds." Lin said calmly. "I mean you blew out that Colossus' power core."

"And if Korra and Master Katara hadn't been able to heal me that could have been a career ending wound." Mako said, there was a bit of pain in his voice as he clenched his hand.

"Mako, you're a good officer, we would have found you an office job." She said, laying an encouraging hand on his shoulder.

"I joined to help make sure no more kids would have to suffer what me and Bolin went through, there's no way I could do that from behind a desk."

"I don't know, I happen to have a pretty useful desk?" Lin said, she turned her head to look at him. As expected Mako flinched under her gaze. "Just throwing that out there."

"What no!" Mako protested, red faced. "Chief, that's years away, besides there's no way I could be half the leader you are."

"Probably not." She shrugged. "But you could always try."

The doors finally opened on the central command floor. The central offices of Republic City were larger, but so was Republic City, and yet Zaofu's counterpart was no less glorious. When the elder Bataar had designed it he had not intended it to be some utilitarian expanse of function. A high ceiling was supported by huge angular pillars at the corners of the room they were themselves decorated with brass and gold decorations of intense grid work and jagged triangles. In between the pillars switchboards and banks of radio equipment were being seen to by a dutiful staff in green and black robes. At the furthest edge of the room glass windows three floors high showed the morning sun coming in through the valley and all of Zaofu below it.

"Guard Captain Timur." The Chief said, calling across the office floor to the man stood in the middle of half a dozen desks. "We have a request to make." She said as she approached the taller, fatter, younger man.

"Of course." The somewhat tired night captain said, with the morning sun casting him in silhouette. "Anything for our friends in the RCPD."

"We need you to put out an APB on a woman called Ahnah, she's an Earth Kingdom citizen of water tribe descent." Lin explained quickly.

Timur's face scrunched up into a slight sneer. "Another outsider. Makes sense I suppose."

"What about us?" Mako asked a tad affronted.

"Hey, the way I see it if you guys can do half our job in a place like Republic City then you're okay by me." He said warmly.

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean." Lin said, welling with patriotic fervour. "Half your job indeed." She muttered under her breath.

"It's just a difference of philosophy. Aang made the republic so that anyone could come and try and make a better life for themselves, but Zaofu was founded by the best for the best. It's just natural that we don't have to worry about crime as much as you do." He explained breezily, as if it were the most sensible thing in the world.

Lin squinted slightly and clenched her hands into fists; Mako noticed it and hoped the Guard Captain had not. "Maybe we should forget philosophy." Mako said in an attempt at diplomacy. "If you could just put out that APB, I'm sure it's been a long night for both of us."

Lin grunted and then made for the door. Mako followed after her. "Sorry if I ruffled a few feathers." Timur yelled behind them.

07:24

"Hold still!" Asami commanded. For a moment, the Avatar, master of the four fundamental elements of the universe and bearer of the oldest spirit in existence stood exactly still, as Asami told her to. And then Korra flinched again. "Honestly, I thought earthbending was supposed to be all about patience." She huffed and finally released the tape measure.

"Well maybe if you would actually tell me what it's for I'd try harder." Korra retorted. "Oh, fine." Asami huffed. She picked up a large ledger from the bed she had been sitting on and pulled out a blueprint. It was a drawing of Korra, if a tad idealised, in a heavily modified airbender wingsuit. "I started making you a wingsuit but then I thought, you're the avatar, you could do so much more than just fly with it. See, it has cable gauntlets in the wrists, and a streamlined waterskin over the back and I even included some platinum armour to keep you safe." Asami said proudly, as she traced a finger over the various parts of the suit.

"That is so cool." Korra smirked. "Does it have pockets?"

Asami's face dropped for a moment. "Pockets?"

"You know, for snacks, and things." Korra explained.

"Pockets." Asami hissed before she started pouring over her blueprints looking for a place to put the desired pockets.

"Asami, it's not as if you have to get it done right now." Korra said, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Yes, I do!" Asami protested, almost frantically. "You heard Su, warlords and deserters are coming for this city and you've got to face them." Asami took a deep breath and then spoke again, a tad more evenly. "I promised your dad I'd look after you and one assassin already got into the city, this just felt like the best way to keep you safe. If something happened, If I knew I could have done something about it I'd never forgive myself."

"Hey." Korra said, moving closer to Asami. "I'll be fine, pockets or not." She gave Asami a quick, clumsy peck right where the jaw met the neck, it was tad too forceful and Korra's nose prodded Asami almost exactly in the ear hole, but the thought was there.

Asami laughed and twisted away playfully. "Airbending, you can master but a kiss is beyond you." She teased.

"Well we can't all be a prissy, beautiful, elegant rich girl you know." Korra teased.

"But you are, Korra." Asami laughed, Korra just raised an eyebrow. "I mean you're Chief Tonraq's daughter, doesn't that make you royalty, or something."

"The South elects its chiefs, you gold digger." She answered with a self amused chuckle, then her voice changed to a more tender note. "Besides the Avatar has to travel the world I couldn't really make a home there." She said softly.

"So what do you call home?" Asami asked, she half suspected the answer as she took hold of Korra's hands.

Korra slumped against Asami, her powerful musculature slackened and relaxed for a moment. "Right here." She said with a lopsided smile.

O8:07

"It's not good enough." Su yelled between ragged breaths as she dropped down from her wire in the middle of a similarly exhausted dance troupe. "From the top, we're doing it again until we get it right!" She barked with all the fury Lin might muster leading her officers into battle.

"It's been a hundred and twenty six times already." Officer Hong Li protested.

"Then you better hope we get it on the hundred and twenty seventh." She snapped in response.

"Su you've been up since dawn." Lin protested as she walked in, Mako had gone off to talk with Kuvira's guard detail.

"I run a city Lin, that's nothing new." She answered snidely as she let herself out of her harness. As she placed both feet on the floor she seemed unsteady on her feet. She wobbled over on tired legs to sit on the windowsill. "Take a break, we'll try something else after lunch." She said to her dancers, defeated.

"Su, are you alright?" Lin asked, maintaining a comfortable distance.

"Of course I'm not alright." Su snapped. "I negotiated with Raiko to have them moved to the South Pole, I let them back into the city, I ran to their rescue, and all Kuvira could be bothered to say was a load of nonsense to shift the blame for all the suffering she caused and then she snaps at me, for not loving her enough!" Su ranted, her voice echoed through the hall of the Beifong estate as the last of her recital group was shuffling out. "I gave that girl everything." She seethed, more quietly.

"Su." Lin said hesitantly. "I don't want to take sides but you never did make her a part of the family."

Su scowled at her for a moment, if it were anyone else she might have considered much worse than scowling, but she didn't. "She was eight when I found her Lin, I didn't want her to live under the Beifong name if she didn't have to, you remember what that was like."

Lin nodded sadly for a moment. "Yes, I remember. But did you even ask her." Lin crouched down until she was looking her sister in the eyes.

"I didn't know how to ask her without it sounding like I was coercing her. By the time I thought she could decide for herself she was her own woman and she'd fallen for Bataar, I thought it might make things awkward for them if we just started treating them like siblings. I just wanted what was best for her." She explained tenderly.

"Did you ever tell her any of that?" Lin asked, she moved to the windowsill opposite her sister.

"Well you know how it is Lin, you try, but then when the moment comes you can't think of a way to say it right so you leave it until next time." Su replied.

"Well she's not going anywhere." Lin answered.

"No. She's crossed the line this time." Su snapped. "The entire continent is in disarray, who knows how many are dead, and my city is flooded with refugees with no where to put them and no domes to keep them safe, because of her."

"Su couldn't you just…." Lin went to say.

Su stifled her with a look, the only time in her life that had ever worked. "No." She said simply. "We're done here."

08:32

Sweet steam rose out of a small porcelain cup. The body had been removed a while ago, but the epicentre of destruction that it sat in was still there. When Lin entered the Villa she wondered how long Kuvira had been watching that upturned living room.

"Hello, Chief." Kuvira groaned tiredly, it seemed as if it had been a considerable undertaking to turn her head from the mess to the door, as if the weight of her own head was nearly too much to move. The healer had come and gone, but Kuvira still looked beaten, her nose was slightly crooked now and the skin around her eyes was still a slightly tender purple. Bataar hadn't fared much better, dark and heavy rungs sat on his sleepless eyes. He moved slowly and deliberately as he set the two cups of tea down on the table. When he sat beside her it was obvious he had a pensive frown on his face as he just watched the gears turn in Kuvira's head.

Lin carried a slim folder in her off hand, she sat at the table and slid it across the table.

"What is this, Lin?" Bataar asked as he turned the folder the right way around for them. It became clearer upon opening up the folder to reveal a series of autopsy photos and copies of a coroner's report.

"I'll give you the run down." She said flatly. "Based off the evidence I'd say that this guy was having a pretty tough time of it, then he heard you were coming here and made a break in."

"How did they get in?" Bataar prodded.

"Well, with the walls down and the Earth Continent in disarray Zaofu's got a lot refugees coming its way, for all we know he was here for months." Lin responded.

Kuvira just sat there shaking her head as she listened.

"Ku-Ku, are you okay?" Bataar asked.

"Ku-Ku?" Lin muttered under her breath.

"Fine, yeah." She lied briskly. "I'm just going to go lay down." She said emptily. She stood up, kissed Bataar on the head and wandered down the hall wearily, her head still shaking. The Beifongs waited until they heard the bedroom door squeak shut.

"One of those days?" Lin asked softly.

The walls of a metal house were thick but they couldn't do much to block out Bataar's voice. Kuvira lay face up on the bed, fully clothed. Just listening.

"I'm afraid so." Bataar huffed. "I thought coming back home might cheer her up, I mean she seemed like she was letting go yesterday, but now….honestly she's worse than ever."


	4. Chapter 4: Dragged Down Memory Lane

There was a knocking on the bedroom door. "Come in." Kuvira groaned.

"Well at least you answered." Bataar said, as he backpeedled through the door with a lunch tray in his hands

"You would have run in if I hadn't." She deadpanned, and then cracked a little smile.

"Oh, a smile, you are feeling better." Bataar teased as he sat down on the bed.

"Lunch makes everyone happier." She said, reaching over to the tray on Bataar's lap. She snatched a lunch roll off of a tray and nibbled it quickly as if she had stolen it.

"True." He said blankly, "Especially lunch in bed." Bataar huffed a moment.

"Is this where I'm supposed to ask how you're feeling." Kuvira teased, knocking him in the shoulder. Bataar just looked back at her with slightly sad eyes. "I suppose this isn't where you thought you'd be."

"I just….." Bataar took off his heavy framed glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He sighed deeply. "Is this all we're going to do the rest of our lives, sit in the same ten rooms and try to think of something to fill the next eighty years."

"Your father says he wants you to come back as his engineer. Maybe, somewhere down the line they'll ease up on you." She answered.

"What about you?" He asked gently.

"I presided over one of the most oppressive regimes in history, I doubt Su could ever really forgive me." She commented sadly, bowing her head. She gulped mightily as she attempted to force out something she had been meaning to say for a while. "You've given up enough for me, Bataar." She said, sadly as she grabbed him by the shoulders. "If you get the chance to get out of here, you take it and you never look back."

"Kuvira what are you saying?" Bataar gasped in reponse.

"I'm saying I've been your burden long enough and I'm not going to drag you down any further." She yelled at him, almost angry. "If you have to….just leave me behind, I'll be alright." She lied.

There was a long pause before Bataar could figure out what to say. "I'm not here out of pity." He managed more confidently, he gently took her hands off of his shoulders and clasped them gently in his own hands. "I'm here because I'd follow you anywhere, and we just happened to end up here."

"And you really aren't going anywhere?" She squeaked a weak surprised chuckle. "After all this?" she said, starry eyed.

"You and me against the world" He commented dryly. "I'd give us even odds." She leaned in for kiss and then Bataar dove in for more, trying to remember which side of Kuvira's robe had the fastenings on it. Then a doorbell went off.

"We have a doorbell?" Kuvira asked as she hopped off the bed and did up one of the cords Bataar had managed to unknot.

"Apparently." Bataar huffed. Reluctantly he too clambered off.

They were just into the living room when the door opened on its own, or rather a metalbender on the other side of the door opened it. Stood there was Su Yin in a hooded robe with a satchel over her shoulder and her Bataar in the doorframe. Kuvira's heart jumped and she almost instinctively froze in place.

"S-Su I'm so sorry, for what I said." Kuvira bowed deeply until she was staring at the floor, her hair hung over her face like a curtain.

"Good, sit down." Su said casually, pointing to the dining room table. She herself sat on one of the high, slightly curved-backed chairs with the sort of confidence that suggested she owned it. Technically speaking she did own it.

"Do you mind if I ask what this is about, mother." Bataar asked gently as he and his father sat down opposite each other.

"Your father wanted to talk with you about the domes." Su explained with a surprisingly warm tone as she fished a rolled up blueprint from out of her large bag. "Kuvira and I will be taking a walk."

"Anything you say, Su." Kuvira answered humbly. She stood up a second after Su and proceeded out the door. She had made no progress with the garden, it would have to wait for another day, it seemed. In the path, just in view of the gates Su stopped them and dropped her bag on the ground. She pulled out a wig, a large brown one with a sharp fringe long enough to cover her eyebrows and an integrated Fire Nation topknot from their adaption of 'Love Amongst The Dragons'.

"Tie you hair up." Su commanded. Kuvira silently obeyed, with a slightly dumbstruck look on her face she pulled her hair back into a tight knot on the crown of her head. Su plunked the wig down hard and heavy on Kuvira's head and adjusted it until it looked more or less right and precisely flicked a few hairpins in with her bending. Kuvira responded a second after with a gasp as she felt metal lodge in her scalp. The threat was clear enough; she tried not to look too frightened or too angered.

"Su, what is this about?" Kuvira asked as the older woman levitated a metal makeup case into her hands from out of the bag.

"You aren't exactly popular." Su said archly as she prepared a makeup brush. "If the Great Uniter showed up you would probably cause a riot." She explained as she peppered the flesh tone concealer over Kuvira's face, taken a keen interest in covering up her beauty spot.

Between Kuvira's weight gain and abandoning anything that even vaguely resembled a military uniform she had already done a good enough job of not looking much like herself. With Su's help she looked like an entirely different person. There was a clink of metal as a large, shield shaped necklace flanked by rib like flanges of metal and fitted with a heavy clasp fluttered out of the bag. It clinked like a wind chime. With a few forceful twists of the wrist Su attached it around Kuvira's neck.

"Um….thanks Su." Kuvira said politely as she tried to readjust to the weight of Metal Clan jewellery.

"I wouldn't be." She said coldly. All of a sudden it seemed to be getting heavier, pulling her down and forwards until she stumbled to within a hair's breadth of Su. "If you leave my sight, if you cause any sort of trouble, I will drag you back here by that collar." She seethed and then proceeded to walk down the path, rolling the circular gate in the estate walls out of her way with an almost incidental flick of her hands.

Su's private tram was a small, barebones affair, no different from any other tram in the city. However it was empty, entirely so aside from Su who stood at the front of it like a proud captain at the prow. She didn't look at Kuvira, and she didn't speak but in her reflection on the tram windows Su Yin's brow was furrowed in thought. They reached the downtown platform in a few minutes time. Even from the rail platform high off the ground the city looked more crowded than Kuvira remembered it, vastly so. Then she saw the first of them. Sat on the silvery streets between a newspaper stand and a food vendor was a man in hand-me-downs and the remains of some homespun robes. Propped up against the building next to him were a pair of crutches and one of his legs stopped at the knee. He looked off into the middle distance with a pained grimace and rattled a tin cup with a few coins in it.

"Where are we going, Su?" Kuvira asked as she was gently persuaded to follow after her by the tug of her necklace. The tram platform had been vandalized, repeatedly, and the maintenance crew had yet to find the time or funds to fix it.

"33rd Street." Su said sternly. She turned for a moment to see look on Kuvira's face. As predicted she looked appropriately mortified as the realisation dawned on her. In return all Kuvira could see on Su's face was a joyless downward pull of her lips and a slightly soft look in her eyes that said it was no easier for her. "There's something I need to show you."

The street was stiflingly hot and incredibly noisy. More vagrants than just the one legged man sat about, looking at nothing in particular. Some of Zaofu's citizens had formed charity stalls and soup kitchens that each teemed with a jostling line. The very few guardsmen that they had seen were either patrolling warily, with their hands at the ready or they were swinging through the skyline from one hotspot to another. Kuvira recognised one of the beat officers under his helmet. He was stony faced and he had a new scar on his lip. He locked eyes with her. Quickly she averted her gaze and hoped that he hadn't been able to recognize her.

"Still got it." He muttered to his partner as they passed by.

The disguises seemed a waste, no one bothered with two more women in a road packed full already. They crossed a few blocks of the city until they saw it. A high rise, narrow building of hard steel with stained glass windows. It sat small and shadowed by two high rise apartments, squeezed in like a weed. They climbed the stairs of the high rise's stoop, it didn't seem like the mountain it had been before. On a chevronned door there was a single knocker which Su rattled.

"Su, please, for spirit's sake." Kuvira begged. "No."

"The only way I can expect you to take responsibility for you actions is to see what you're actually responsible for." Su answered.

Through the door the sound of children laughing and children crying could be heard in equal measure. A pair of feet drew closer to the door. Finally it opened up on a young woman, dressed in simple, angular robes and a smeared apron. She kept her hair tied back and her glasses on chains.

"Su Yin, Lady Mika, We've been expecting you, not much we could do to make this mess presentable, but you know." She said as he opened the door behind her and led them in.

The foyer of the orphanage was packed. Some children were crying over something or another whilst a few others played with second hand toys, some of which Kuvira remembered. Wandering in between them other volunteers like the young girl were being swamped by the mess of children at their waists.

"As you can see we've had a bit of an influx since the war." She said as a knobbly-kneed little boy ran past her with a colander, his favourite colander. "The refugee centres are giving us kids from Omashu, Ba Sing Se, Makapu, we're even getting a few from the Foggy Swamp Tribe, you know the ones who made it out." She said, audibly exhausted. "So what are you here for, ma'am?" she added politely.

"Mika is a friend of mine from Republic City who's looking to make a few charitable investments, I'm just showing her around." Su improvised. "Would you mind giving us a moment alone."

"Oh yes, absolutely ma'am." She said a bit too quickly, then she bowed, again too quickly, she almost toppled over, and then she ran into another room, once again too quickly.

Kuvira could only stand there mutely and watch the children all around her. Some were happy, the older ones that had been here for years but the rest had obviously not gotten over their loss and no one had found the time to get to them.

"You told Korra you didn't want anyone else to live like you." Su said, before she took one last breath. "Well, here's the end result."

"I want to leave." Kuvira said a little bit too loudly, even over the children's din. Her eyes began to water slightly. "Su seriously, I'm sorry can we just go." She said more flustered, she grabbed the older woman by the wrist and tugged at her arm.

Su whirled around and put her hands on Kuvira's shoulders, hard, almost as if she were trying to hammer her into the ground. "I need to hear you say you made a mistake." She said sharply.

Kuvira squirmed for a moment as the words worked their way out of her. "What I wanted was wrong, my methods were wrong, what I ended up with was wrong." She said slowly and emptily with her head bowed. "And I knew that even as I carried on doing it…..I'm sorry, Su."

Su sighed deeply for a moment. "Good. Now you can learn how to make things better." Su said more warmly as she put her hands on Kuvira's face to dab away her tears.


	5. Chapter 5: Out Of The Box

"So…..you wanted to talk about the domes." Junior said awkwardly as he stood up out of the dining room chair. "I had started coming up with diagrams back at the south pole. These new ones could use the same honeycomb reinforcements we put in the Colossus to reduce weight, meaning we could open and close them faster."

"Junior, I didn't really want to talk about the domes. I mean we're pretty low on metal at the moment anyway." Bataar senior explained a tad sadly. He reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out a pair of glasses. They were thick, black, as much tape as frame. They were Bataar's old glasses.

Wing and Wei entered boldly with Opal and Huan following after them.

"What is all this?" Bataar Junior asked suspiciously. "Some sort of family intervention."

"No." Said Wei.

"Well not exactly." Wing added.

"Your mother's discussing it with Kuvira now." The elder Bataar began uncertainly. As he spoke his children sat around him, all of them watched Junior intently. All save Huan who seemed rather distracted at the moment. "We need her help, and yours to stop one of your generals from launching an attack on Zaofu."

"We could lose thousands, Bataar." Opal said softly.

"Our whole city, our whole way of life is at risk." His father resumed. "Kuvira can provide strategic insight and we need your knowledge to come up with defensive countermeasures."

"I will if she will." Bataar responded. "It's good to see you're finally starting to trust us."

"We wouldn't if we didn't have to." Wei huffed angrily.

"Well we wouldn't trust _her _anyway." Wing added. Wei huffed again but refused to comment.

Bataar removed the crude, heavy, imprecise glasses he had been lumbered with and slipped on his old pair. He blinked slightly, in disbelief, he had nearly forgotten what the world was like when his view of it wasn't being marred by the murkiness of his plastic lenses. His father's face was even more heavily lined than he remembered with new worry lines around his forehead and dashes of ice white hair in his beard and eyebrows. In a year stress had aged him by a decade. Stress Bataar Junior had no doubt had a hand in. "I suppose we owe it to you either way."

Kuvira stood there dumbly, she barely even noticed an orphan catch her in the leg with a very hard wooden doll. Slowly she opened her mouth and in due time she managed to force a sentence out. "Su….what am I supposed to do." She finally managed, meagrely.

"Kuvira, I want you to help me fight your warlord." She whispered before she grabbed her by the hand and yanked her out into the porch again. "When we've got more information on whoever's heading up this little horde you're going to tell me everything I need to know about how to defeat them." She said authoritatively.

The momentary appearance of Su the mentor was once again replaced by the ever more apparent Su the matriarch. For a moment Kuvira wondered if this proposal was a chance to earn her respect or a simple compromise to get her help. It didn't matter.

"Yes." Kuvira said emptily. As an afterthought Su Yin quickly extended a hand. Gingerly Kuvira took hold and shook it. The look of scepticism on Su Yin's face was clear enough as was the stone crushing grip she had chosen to employ.

A throat was cleared behind Su's back, it was the orderly with a gift basket. "Sooo." She said nervously. "I take it you don't want a gift basket."

"No. But I can arrange extra funding if you're quiet." Su responded before she bundled herself and Kuvira out into the street.

Back at the Beifong estate Bataar was being marched to meet her with the rest of his family behind him, as well as a guard contingent. A singular guard who hadn't even bothered to wear his armour but a guard none the less. As soon as he caught sight of Kuvira he bolted towards her. The guard probably would have lashed him with a bending cable if Su hadn't waved him off. He half hugged half tackled her, staggering her back a few paces.

"Did they tell you." He whispered into her ear happily. "They want us on their side." He said a tad louder before he released her.

"Su told me." Kuvira answered morosely. "I…"

Before she could speak further Su bellowed a command. "Guardsman Kong, take them back to the Villa." She declared casually on her walk up the steps to the central mansion.

The guard approached wearily, just at the tips of his gauntlets his cables began to snake their way out as if he expected to drag them back to their summer home turned prison. It proved unnecessary when his charges just shuffled back home without comment or resistance.

Huan had been kind enough to right most of their furniture and bend most it back into shape, or at least a shape he liked. When they flopped back tiredly into a sofa that now bent in on itself at an acute angle it more or less felt like they were relaxing in actual furniture.

"You know my father came around." Bataar commented briskly. "They're prepared to trust you. I think if we show a united front we can really show them how far we've come." He finished with an optimistic little grin.

"We can't have come that far." Kuvira answered sadly. "We're just leading another war."

"Feels like it's been ages since we did this." Mako said as a servant laid down his meal.

"I know, and I've missed everyone in Republic City so much." Bolin said a tad morosely. "How is it over there anyway?"

Mako thought to spare his brother's feelings but in the end he replied honestly. "It could be better, with so many displaced citizens there are a lot of vulnerable people and the triads are taking advantage." His tone lightened for a moment. "But with the new Spirit Portal Chief Tonraq's been able to send almost constant aid; you know Senna mustered half the college of healers for the refugee camps." He added more optimistically.

"What about Eska and Desna, are they sending any help?" Bolin hazarded.

"Asking about your exes, really Bolin?" Opal said with a mock pout and crossed arms.

"I-I…." Bolin simply stammered, red faced.

Mako interrupted for his brother's sake "I told her you were with Opal and you were very happy….." He turned in his seat to face Opal. "She said you weren't terrifying enough."

"I'll try and take that as a compliment." Opal said slowly. "Although I could stand to be a bit more terrifying." She said slowly as she leaned into Bolin with a cheshire grin.

"Still how about this restaurant." Bolin said cheerily, with a mouthful of Mango pudding. "Don't tell Chef but I've been meaning to get on the waiting list for ages." He whispered to Opal, conspiratorially.

"Well, I am_ technically_ a visiting dignitary." Mako said, with a terribly pleased grin. "Didn't think I'd ever be saying that."

"Feels like just last week we were begging Butaka for food money." Bolin commented.

Korra and Asami arrived with their usual gravitas. The avatar barged her way through with some comment to the concierge about dealing with it and Asami backpedalled after her whilst she quickly muttered an apology to the staff. Asami had come out in a short, slim dress of bold red whilst Korra wore her usual ensemble of fighting gear with some.

"Korra!" Bolin squaled. "Asami." He again squealed. "Sorry we ordered without you, I got soooo hungry."

"Okay, but why did you order desert?" Asami asked cooly as she slid into the booth alongside him, followed by Korra.

"We didn't." Mako groaned, presenting an appetizer plate of fried shrimp. "That's just how Bolin eats now." He added, vexed.

"I…don't have the heart to stop him." Opal responded before she leaned against the sweet-toothed lavabender.

"Besides." Bolin said with a broad smile. "I might be enjoying my desert but Mako's the one who's been gaining weight."

"I am not." Mako pouted and crossed his arms. As he dipped his head to better smoulder he felt his neck fold into a slight double chin. His head snapped straight upwards a moment later. "Well it's stressful being a Captain." He muttered by way of an excuse.

"I think it makes you look cuddly." Asami said gently. "Like a teddy platypus bear." She released an awkward snorting laugh.

"Are you teasing me?" Mako said, almost offended as he leaned over the table.

"Well you _are _very teasable." Korra noted.

Mako's face dropped for a moment then his eyes widened as a though crossed the back of his mind. "Well I was working a case on Republic City University and I saw a little photo of a certain someone on their distinguished graduates list." Mako explained. For the first time since Asami hit him with a moped he saw her demure face drop into an utterly terrified gasp.

"Wow, Mako, you're really embarrassing her." Korra quipped as she took hold of Asami's arm. "Whast next are you going to tell me about the time she graduated early or built a moped or something?"

"Mako, come on don't." Asami begged in a long groaning drawl.

Undaunted the Captain reached into one of the pouches on his utility belt and presented a small sepia photograph. It was Asami, just about. A skinny, awkward, stick of a girl, her face peppered with some fairly heavy teenage acne. Her hair stuck out from either side of her head in tightly wound pigtails. She stretched her lips into a nervous smile that revealed a set of braces. In the present Asami was blushing bright red before she buried her face in her hands. Mako chuckled as he felt a warm sense of victory well up inside himself.

"Is that why you wouldn't let us see you without your makeup?" Bolin asked idly.

"Hey, come on." Korra said softly tipping Asami's head up and out of her hands. "It's not like I love you for your looks." She said softly. Almost immediately her face froze in shock.

"What did you say?" Asami asked with the biggest grin she had ever made. "What did you say she repeated."

"Gloves." Korra said too quickly and too loudly. "I said something about…..your gloves and…..how nice they are."

"No you didn't." Asami squealed as she grabbed a hold of Korra's hands. "You love me, you said you love me!" Before Korra was even half way through thinking of a response Asami led with a kiss directly on the lips. When she pulled back enough of Asami's lipstick had rubbed off that Korra's mouth was looking just a touch pinker.

"Wow, Mako you really showed her." Opal teased.

"Sure did." He said, leaning back into his chair with a little smile as he watched the two lean in much more slowly for another kiss. Again he felt a warm sense of victory wash over him.

"How did your chat with Su go?" Bataar asked as he and Kuvira slid into bed. He passed her a cup of herbal tea and then took a sip of his own. As ever she slurped hers and he let out this low hissing sigh after every sip. They both hated the other's ridiculous little noise but it didn't feel like tea without it.

"Not well. She still hasn't forgiven me. I'm not really surprised" She said with a little pout after another slurp of the slightly bitter health drink. "But she wants to work with me, to talk with me. I think that if we do well on this, make it clear how we feel….well maybe we could start healing." She said with the most brilliantly optimistic smile that Bataar could only sit back and watch.

"Feeling a lot better than this morning, aren't you?" Bataar commented as he snuggled up to her.

"You'd be surprised what a difference a day can make." She said warmly.

A small farming village named Se Rhu sat in the shadow of a mag-lev track that was never completed. Twenty families and one satomobile all congregated together in old wooden halls and houses, the only disturbance in miles of soft green grass and dry shrubbery. In a hut on the outskirts of town a farmhand looked found something in the distance as he stepped out onto his porch. An army, or at least the closest thing to one for a thousand miles. He reached for an old telescope he had bought as a boy and studied them. Battle damaged mecha-suits and commandeered tanks jostled for space amongst a contingent of washed out Imperials, a few barbarian tribes and a small army of brightly coloured mercenaries. They walked on foot, on the back of ox carts and in old army transports. And like the thunderhead of a rolling storm it was advancing directly on Se Rhu.

The farmer ran into the main and only road down the middle of the village and in time a few of them would join him, takin turns on that cloudy old spy glass as they watched the army rise upon them.

By the time the first of the army had arrived most of the villagers were cowering in their homes or their barns or their cellars. A brave few watched from the windows but only the farmhand dared to remain in the road.

A trio of mecha-suits led the central column of their army down the road. A column to either side began to surround the town. The central one was painted with a ridiculously gauche paintjob of shined emerald green with gold filigree decorations of a lotus flower on the chest, some cloud like swirls on the headpiece and golden dragons coiled around the biceps. High gain radio masts with tattered green and gold banners fluttered off his back like a dead bird's wings. In one hand he carried a ten foot great sword, made from a biplane's propeller welded to long haft of metal.

"Seriously. This is what they send?" He growled as he saw the single farmhand standing in the road in front of him. He was dressed in dusty, loose fitting workman's gear with a narrow face buried under a drooping, oversized hat that completely concealed his face. "Or is this where you reveal that you're some great master who ran here to escape his past."

"It isn't." The farmhand yelled back simply. "I'm just a citizen of the Earth Nation, and a proud one that won't let a bully like you from marching in and setting us to work." He yelled defiantly as he approached. He threw his hat off, revealing a young man with a mop of long black hair tied into a traditional topknot. "So I challenge you to strike me down if you really think you can kill an unarmed civilian. And if you do, I promise you, there will be a thousand more men, and a thousand more villages that will never bend a knee to tyrants like you, ever again."

The hulking mecha suit stood entirely still for a moment. With his head hidden under the dome of the suit's armour it was impossible to judge watch might have been going through the warlord's mind. He buried the sword edge first into the loose, trampled soil of the village road and approached the little farmhand. He flicked open the dome revealing a man with a trim beard and the hair on his slowly balding head was gelled and groomed into a tall coif. His ears were lined with gold rings and he formed a slightly mischievous grin as he leaned towards the farmhand. "Okay." He said cheerily.

With that he grabbed the farmer's head in his hand. The villagers heard a muffled shouting, then a high pitched scream and finally a sick wet crunch.


	6. Chapter 6: For Zaofu

Guardsman Rai had stood before Su Yin before, every last guard who stayed during the exodus from Zaofu had met with her in private. He remembered she was warm and friendly, her voice was song like as she invited him in before and when she spoke she thanked him for his loyalty and asked about his family. Today she simply yelled "Enter."

When he walked in the shutters on her windows were down and the lights were on despite it being midday. She had been up before dawn. She leaned heavily over her desk with her hands on her forehead, shadowing her face. Beneath her gaze was an annotated map of the Earth Continent. It was dotted with pins of United Republic purple, Air Nation yellow and Water Tribe blue, to show the relief operations. The Warlord's forces were black, and the black pins were slowly growing to the east, like a rot upon the land. She slowly craned her head upwards and looked at him by the entrance with heavy, tired eyes pressed into a small scowl.

"Ma'am, Kuvira and your son are here ." He said quickly after a formal bow.

"Send them in."

"Feels like it's been a life time since we were here." Bataar commented as they walked briskly up the stark metal corridors of the Beifong Estate. Even the servants reared up and shot them dirty looks as they passed.

"And I wouldn't mind waiting a little bit longer." Kuvira said with a nervous sort of smile.

"I'll be right next to you." Bataar said softly as Rhee appeared in the crack of the doors.

Su Yin's office felt larger, more cavernous, than it ever had in the old days. With the addition of a few guards it also felt much tenser. Korra and her people were there and so was the entire Beifong family, Lin included. If they had been talking it fell to a deathly silence when the high, heavy door parted.

"Have you learnt anything new?" Bataar asked curtly as they entered the office. Bataar had picked his finest robe for the occasion and carried his ledger with him. Kuvira picked a grey and black robe with sharply cut sleeves and shoulders. Her hair was wound into a familiar braid, though looser and more casual with a few stray strands framing her face. For a moment the two of them had a sense of the authority that seemed too reminiscent of the Great Uniter and her Science Commander. Su, however wasn't fooled. Bataar only ever dressed up when he had someone to impress and Kuvira had selected her loosest, darkest set of robes to disguise her weight. As they entered Su Yin noticed their gaze roll from looking at Korra and Asami to Chief Beifong, to Su and everyone else in the room.

"That's how you want to start?" Asami asked a tad venomously as she crossed her arms and stiffened her posture.

"This is our city, Sato, we're not going to waste time on manners when there's a warlord on our doorstep." Kuvira snapped. She noticed the slight dip of Korra's brows into the beginning of a glare. Kuvira's face softened. "The irony isn't lost on us." She offered by way of an apology.

"We've liaised with the White Lotus; all of your former generals are either dead or in prison." Su Yin answered.

"I've been out to the refugee camps, they've got descriptions but no names." Opal explained.

"And I've looked at the sketches but I can't recognise him." Bolin commented.

Mako handed the couple one of the sketches. Kuvira flinched as her finger's brushed against the rough, crumpled scar tissue of Mako's burn. He grunted and gave her a withering look but he didn't have anything to say on the matter.

Bataar cleared his throat. "I recognise him." He said awkwardly. "The nose is a bit off, but it's definitely him. He traced a finger over that wide rictus grin sketched into the paper. "I'd know that smile anywhere." He grimaced.

"Rhee." Kuvira said heavily as she peered over Bataar's shoulder. "He was the Deputy Watchman for the Omashu Guard's nightshift."

"How on earth did you end up talking to someone that far down the chain?" Lin pressed from the opposite end of the table.

Kuvira dipped her head for a moment. "He was crooked, I mean really crooked. We hadn't even laid siege for a whole day before I heard him over the radio, offering to open the gates in exchange for a promotion."

"So what happened?"

"We opened the gates, we promoted him, we moved on." Kuvira explained simply.

"What kind of man are we dealing with?" Korra asked sharply as she took a look at the sketch.

"Nothing special, an average officer, non-bender, fairly bright. I never trusted a man who could turn traitor that easily, though." Kuvira said. She looked up to a few sceptical faces. "Again, I can appreciate the irony." She remarked dryly.

"Why would he be coming here?" Asami asked.

"Greed, I imagine." Su Yin postulated. "Zaofu's taken a beating but it's still the richest city on the continent."

"Perhaps, but Rhee could have asked for money at Omashu and instead he chose power, if I had to guess I'd say he's making the same choice now." Kuvira said with a surprising amount of certainty. "Zaofu is also a relatively small place compared to Omashu or Ba Sing Se, and it isn't very popular with a lot of the other big states, if he were to take Zaofu no one on the mainland would be too bothered."

Su Yin gasped. "You're telling me this guy wants to become king?" Kuvira nodded.

"I'll call my father, maybe he can send help." Korra suggested. "Maybe Tenzin could help as well."

"Some of my cadets are starting to get a handle on Lavabending, we might be able to set up lava fields to keep most of the army out." Bolin suggested.

Su Yin paused for a moment and then turned to the Avatar. "Call for all the help you want but we're going to try diplomacy first." She announced commandingly. "The city couldn't survive another war right now." She said pensively.

The group filed out and as Bataar and Kuvira "Bataar, can I see you alone for a minute?" Su asked gently.

"Of course, mother." He replied in kind. Kuvira gave him a quick hug and went out the door. "Bataar, sit." Su asked as she flopped, somewhat heavily into a low, green couch. She put on a tired smile and scooted over to give him some space.

Bataar sat rigidly with his hands on his lap, facing straight forwards in an effort not to look his mother in the eye. "I suppose it's been a while since we really talked." He said in a long sigh.

"Too long." Su said softly. "Your brothers and sisters miss you." She said. "They can forgive you, if you'll let them."

"I know, they had a chat with me when you took Kuvira out." He reported. "I don't know what to do mom." He said sadly. For a moment he was still just that fussy child moaning whenever Opal pushed him over.

"What do you mean?"

"Well it's just so much" He explained, his voice cracked for a moment. "Our city's a mess, Kuvira's an emotional wreck and I'm one of the most hated men in the world." He said sadly. "I just don't see a way out." He finally said in a low shuddering sigh. Beneath his glasses a few tears tracked down his face.

"Have you told Kuvira about all this?" Su asked.

"No." Bataar answered meekly. "No, she's barely hanging on; I can't pile that onto her."

Su wrapped her arms around him. For a while that was all she did. "I can't pardon you, either of you." Su said sadly. "But if you can help save the city then I might be able to justify giving you extra privileges. You could come back and live with the family."

"Both of us." Bataar asked.

Su's mood darkened. "We'll see."

Asami kept a risk pace on her walk out of the estate, she dragged the shorter legged avatar at her side. A few paces behind Kuvira was jostled in the corridor between Guardsman Rei and Lin's unyielding metal armour. She waited until the Beifongs and Bolin had left for another part of the estate. Mako departed a corridor later.

"Asami." Kuvira said softly as she placed a hand on her shoulder. In an instant Sato whirled around and grabbed Kuvira by the wrist. With her off hand she shoved the heavier woman into the unyielding steel of the corridor walls. Guardsman Rei apparently had not noticed.

"Asami, let her go." Korra asked quickly. Eventually Asami's grip relented with an angered huff.

"What do you want, Kuvira." Asami seethed. She appeared quite prepared to look after them.

"Bataar was still too afraid to talk to you, I guess he was right." She said softly as she rubbed her wrist, which had already come up in bruises. "I was going to ask if you could come to our Villa and help him with his defence blueprints." She asked.

Asami cackled for a moment and took a step back. "Seriously?" She asked. "I thought you were going to try another pathetic excuse for an apology, but this….this is just insane."

Kuvira looked up and met Asami's withering gaze, she steeled herself and then spoke. "Please, Asami I just….."

"Your little 'humbled' routine might have others fooled but I will never forget what you did." Asami bristled as she leaned in on Kuvira. "Whatever it is you're really planning I'm not going to help you."

"But I-" Kuvira began.

"I'm done here." Asami fumed. She turned on the balls of her feet and walked away angrily without taking a second look.

"I'll try and talk to her." Korra said gently.

Kuvira just nodded mutely, stood in the long stark corridor of the Beifong estate.

Asami pulled her jacket off in a huff as soon as she entered the guest house. "The nerve of that woman." She muttered angrily. "How can they think anyone will give them the time of day after all they've done?"

"Asami, please." Korra said with a certain softness. "I don't like seeing you angry." She held onto Asami's hands for a moment to try and calm her.

"I know." She said softly, she appeared to be relaxing until her hands balled up into tight, white knuckled fists. "But I can't just forgive her for what she did to me. You were there for the funeral, there wasn't enough of dad left to fill the coffin" What started out as a hateful snarl snapped and broke down into the start of thick flowing tears. "."

"I know that what they did was wrong." Korra said as she led Asami to the nearest sofa. "But sometimes forgiving someone isn't about making their lives easier it's about letting go of all that anger, to make your own life easier."

"Bending or not she's still too dangerous." Asami said bluntly. "You mark my words they're planning something, and I'm not going to help." Strangely there was just a slight quiver of fear in Asami's voice.

Korra thought for a moment and then sat beside her. "Bataar might be criminal but he's still a genius, Zaofu needs you working together." She said softly before she clasped Asami's hand in her own. "And I'll be with you all the way." She said as she pulled her in for an almost crushing embrace.

"Really?" Asami asked. "You don't have Avatar duties to attend to."

"Where you go I go." Korra said before she moved in for a deep, loving kiss.

Lin sat heavily in her temporary office within the Beifong estate. A small radio played the evening music hour whilst she read from a small green pocket book. "Chief!" Mako yelled as he ran towards her with a folder in hand. "I've got news for you, about Kuvira's assassin."

"What is it, Mako?" Lin asked with her habitual curtness.

"Doctor Fang finally got the in depth reports out to us." He announced clearly as he put the small file on her desk. "I've read it and according to her analysis Baraz's last drink was a ricewine microbrew vintage from Tu Zin." He explained.

"That's right between Omashu and here." Lin said as she stood up from her office chair. "He came here fleeing Rhee."

"That's what I thought." Mako said proudly. "But then I got to thinking, that was his last drink, the Doctor says it was only in his stomach for five hours. The only way to get here that quickly from Tu Zin is by airship."

"There's no way a village that small has an aerodrome." She thought aloud. "Someone else would need to get him here." She said, her voice ticked up in realisation.

"That's right chief but there's something else." He said direly. "The only aerodromes with airships fast and efficient enough to make the trip are in Zaofu."

Lin gasped as she quickly figured out where the younger Captain was going. "That would mean that whoever organised this is in Zaofu."


	7. Chapter 7: The Thin Green Line

Lin and Mako pressed into Su Yin's office quickly enough that the guards had not been able to announce them.

"What's the matter Lin?" Her sister asked as she sat forward in her seat.

"Su, you need to heighten security." Lin answered as a command.

"We believe that Baraz was able to get to Zaofu because someone in the city helped him." Mako explained quickly.

Su seemed stunned for a moment, she pushed herself and her chair away from the desk and stood up. By the time she was fully standing she had retained her composure. "And what makes you say that?" She asked almost casually, arms crossed behind her back.

"The contents of his stomach indicate he was in Tu Zin approximately five hours before he died." Lin explained briskly. "The only way to get here that quickly is by airship and the only airships advanced enough to make the trip in time are here, in Zaofu."

Su thought for a moment. "If it's a conspiracy then I can't afford to put this on my guards." She put a heavy hand on Lin's shoulder. "I'm asking you to look into this Lin."

"Absolutely." Lin said, almost warmly.

"You can count on us Ma'am." Mako barked, with a quick salute that touched the rough crumples of his burnt hand to his forehead.

"Do whatever it takes; I want these traitors found, immediately." Su commanded. "Whatever it takes."

Korra rolled thee hatch in the compound's fence out of the way with her metalbending and led Asami through. In the grass around the foundations of the house bare earth had been dug out, ready to be filled with tropical flowers and shrubbery.

"You don't have to be here you know." Asami lied. "I'm sure it'll be pretty boring."

"Where you go I go." Korra answered sweetly as they encroached upon the door. She knocked heavily against the polished metal door.

"It's unlocked." Kuvira yelled through the door.

Korra entered first and Asami followed a small distance afterwards into the living room. Bataar had obviously expected the encounter and filled their dining table with schematics and ledgers full of equations as well as a full design kit laid out proudly.

"I understand you wanted my help Bataar." Asami said rigidly, with a notable absence of emotion.

"Yes." Bataar said keenly. "I was thinking about that EMP attack Varick used and I believe that if we can create a gold backed anechoic dish around an electromagnetic emitter we could create a directed pulse to negate Rhee's mechasuits." He rattled off as he searched through his schematics for the desired paper.

"What sort of range do you estimate?" Asami asked quickly, She was the only one standing rather than sitting and she intended to remain that way.

"It should just be line of sight, provided there are no obstacles in the way." Bataar answered eagerly.

"Anything else." Asami asked neutrally. She was still sat tensely, a good distance from the table and ready to spring up if she needed to.

"Well I have some ideas for mines and I'm working on a longer range version of the plasma cutter on your hummingbird mechs." Bataar said as he shuffled through the papers. "But I'd rather go non-lethal if I can." He said with a warm, almost satisfied smile.

"Never seemed to be a problem before." Asami answered archly.

"Excuse me." Kuvira answered back, almost under her breath.

"Asami just say it." Bataar said wearily as he lowered his head and shrunk in on himself as if he were expecting a killing blow.

"No Bataar you don't have to listen to this." Kuvira said, putting a hand onto his shoulder.

Asami stood up swift enough that she nearly knocked her chair off its legs. "Oh I think he does." She seethed. "Your little martyr act might be annoying but at least you know what you've done. But he just sits there like he's some sort victim. "You think that just because mommy forgives you you're not still a murderer." She leaned across the table to seethe at Bataar.

"Hey, you don't talk to him that way!" Kuvira yelled, almost roared as she stood up out of her chair and put herself between Asami and Bataar.

"I don't have to be here you know." Asami huffed. "I don't know why I came here in the first place." She muttered under her breath and turned to leave.

"No." Korra said as she moved between Asami and the door. When she met eyes with Asami she had a furrowed brow and a pensive pout.

"Korra." Asami gasped, almost hurt.

"Asami, Zaofu's counting on this." Korra said with sad, soft eyes. "Please, can you just try to make this work."

"Asami." Bataar quivered as he stood up out of his chair. "I know what I did. It's the first thing I remember, every morning. He said with a slight quiver in his voice. Bataar extended a nervous hand towards her in friendship. "I won't forget it, but the only right thing I can do is try to help. Please, will you let me."

Asami looked to Korra, who gave her an affirmative nod. Gingerly Asami grapsed Bataar's hand and shook it as if afraid he had a bat-viper up his sleeve.

"I'm proud of you." Korra whispered into her lover's ear.

Bolin's dojo had been built on the outskirts of Zaofu, high up in the mountains on a grassless plateau. It was a simple construct by Zaofu's standards. A large courtyard surrounded by a quadrangle of low metal buildings. Mako took a certain pride to see 'The Zaofu Institute of Lavabending' emblazoned above a gold embellishment of a fire-ferret atop the octagonal archway into the compound.

"Mako!" Bolin yelled as he ran out of the compound to meet his brother. Pabu perked up as well and bounced off the earthbender's shoulders and scurried up the path to Mako as he parked the jeep Su had lent him.

"Bro." He called back warmly. With a surprising cheer he knelt down into the dusty path and accepted Pabu into his arms. The fire ferret clambered across the yoke off his back, flicking a tufted tail in his face. "I missed you too Pabu." He muttered.

Bolin walked them into the courtyard proper. Fifteen cadets were assembled, all of them in the sleek green under-robes of a Zaofu guard. Some were fresh faced cadets straight out of the academy, others were civilian volunteers who displayed a particular talent for Lavabending. Almost all of them were at least a year older than Bolin, yet they each watched him with a great deal of respect. A large, circular depression in the ground flanked with platinum was presently occupied by a young girl attempting to liquidate a single brick into lava. It bubbled and lava seeped out of the crags in its surface but bending it into a malleable liquid still eluded her.

"Good Form Qua-Mei, you'll nail it in no time." Bolin yelled into the sparring pit. "Remember, you don't need to melt the whole thing, you just need to melt some of it and let the heat do the rest." He explained. Qua-Mei saluted him and attempted a different stance.

"Yo, Bolin, this your brother?" A gruff looking man, of at least thirty asked from the front of a four person group of people practicing their stances. His robes were half unfastened and the sleeves were rolled up. "Way you described him I would have thought he was eight foot tall and farted lightning bolts." He said with a grin along his stubbled jaw.

"It is, Toma, remember to keep you ankles locked." Bolin answered.

"Is there somewhere I can talk to you in private?" Mako leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially. At that moment Pabu elected to cross brothers, hopping from Mako's shoulders to his familiar perch on Bolin's back, flicking Mako on the nose on his way.

"Sure, we can talk in my office." He said jovially. "By the way I have an office now." The slightly giddy young man added as he lead his older brother into a surprisingly well appointed office.

The walls were taken up with pictures of Team Avatar, his grandmother and her side of the family, as well as his entire class packed into a few benches as if they were a preschool group. Bolin noticed that there were a mere two photographs sitting in little frames on his desk. Mako sat down on a long low couch In front of Bolin's desk.

"Did I tell you I'm doing a new radio drama soon, it's called _Ting Ting and the Cabinet of Doctor Razor_!" Bolin squealed in excitement as he presented a glossy publicity poster fresh from ZKO Radio. "I play a super-secret agent for the Fire Nation bought out of retirement to hunt down one of their deadliest criminals."

"Great, Bolin." Mako said a tad impatiently. "The Chief and I need your help."

"What's the matter, Mako?" Bolin asked as he leaned forward across the desk .

"We think Baraz might have gotten here as a result of a conspiracy _inside _the city." Mako explained. "Su thinks the Security Force might be involved so she asked me and Lin to look into it."

"What can I do to help?" Bolin asked frightfully. Reflexively he petted Pabu to calm himself.

"Zaofu's a big city, just the two of us won't be able to search it on our own." He explained. "Your lavabenders aren't official Guards yet, so they couldn't have been involved, but they do have all of their training. Exactly the force we'll need to root out whosever responsible for this." Mako explained.

"The fantastic bending brothers are back in action!" Bolin said as he leaned across the desk. Swiftly Bolin marched out into the courtyard. "Cadets! Form up!" Bolin yelled without an ounce of anger, yet all the same his students stopped what they were doing and assembled in front of him.

"What's going on Sifu Bolin?" Qua-Mei asked urgently. She was a year older than Bolin, tall and slightly stooped with a traditional headpiece fixed into her bun.

"E-Excuse me Sifu Bolin?" A portly student with a prim accent and a tidy set of robes stammered. "Please tell me we don't have to do a demonstration."

"Sifu?" Mako muttered under his breath.

"No, Kimwei, but I do have big news." Bolin said, ramping his voice up to a more powerful timbre. "Some of you have no doubt heard about the assassination attempt on Kuvira."

"What, are finishing the job?" Toma heckled bitterly.

"No. We're going to find out who's responsible and bring them to justice." Bolin answered. Almost immediately his group broke out into argument.

"Enough!" Mako yelled, breathing a waft of fire up into the steel eaves above him. "There is a terrorist organisation at work in this city, one able to get into the Estate of Suyin Beifong herself. Now I don't know about you but I wouldn't let some criminals get away with that in my city." He yelled , leaning over the railings to below closer to his audience.

"Wh-Why are we doing this though?" Kimwei squealed nervously. "Why can't we just have the real guards look into it?"

"Because the security force might be a part of it." Bolin began. "I know not all of you expected to do field work. I know not all of you want to help Kuvira and I know that you still need training. But these people, could be a threat to the Beifongs and every last person in Zaofu, so we're going to do whatever we can to end this threat." He said commandingly. Qua-Mei and Kimwei were both quelled into obedience and even Toma acquiesced with a small grunt. The rest fell in line surely enough. Bolin gave them a salute and they returned it.

"Wow Bo, that was really impressive." Mako said warmly. "Guess I've got to stop think of you as my goofy kid brother."

"I hope not!" Bolin said with a little chuckle.

"What should we do?" One of the cadets asked.

"We're going to the aerodrome right now to talk to the dockmaster. You guys canvas the area, request paper work, ask questions, follow leads, do what you have to do." Bolin commanded. "I believe in you." He said more tenderly.

The aerodrome of Zaofu was packed now. Airships came and went almost constantly, filling the area with the throttled thrum of airship engines and the heavy smell of kerosene fuel and the spices of distant lands. A dinky little earth kingdom balloon sat between a United Republic sky freighter and a Zaofu patrol ship. Sat in the shadow of gas envelopes both bold and battered stevedores in bright green uniforms busily managed the cargo and the people the airships offloaded. Piling out of airships by the dozens came the poor, the starving and the needy. Herded like cattle through procession of brightly coloured barriers they cast a weary mood over the otherwise bright and beautiful docks. In the centre was a panopticon tower that watched the whole thing.

Chief Beifong crossed the aerodrome in a perfectly straight line, her very posture demanded that the whole crowd of people move around her as she passed. No sooner had they stepped out of their tram then Bolin and his cadets snapped to attention the moment they caught sight of the legendary chief. Even Toma looked slightly afraid at the front of the crowd. "This all you could get?" She grunted gruffly.

"They're the only ones we can trust." Mako answered.

"I swear chief, they might be a bit rough around the edges but they'll get the job done." Bolin said confidently.

"We'll see." She answered slowly. "Mako, we're going to question the dockmaster, Bolin organise your people into teams and search the area."

Bolin nodded and turned about to face his squad. "Everyone into groups of five. Qua-Mei make a team and canvas the docks, Toma, I want you to lean on the airship crews and find out what they know, Kimwei, go into the tower basement and check their flight records. Any of you get a lead radio in and chase it down." He rattled off commandingly.

"Yes, Sir!" His cadets replied in a round of half remembered salutes. The group erupted into conversation as Qua-Mei and Toma argued over who they wanted and Kimwei quietly asked anyone else to come with him. Soon enough they split into three and dispersed to search their assigned targets.

Chief Beifong and the bending brothers quickly approached the elevator up to the panopticon. With a quick application of metalbending Lin lifted the metal alcove carrying them up the side of the tower until they were so far off the ground that they could see the curvature of the earth. Behind them the golden sands of the Si Wong desert loomed quietly and in front of them the scrubland of the southern Earth Continent stretched out for miles.

"This is a restricted area." Foreman Yuma seethed. He was dressed in the same green clerk's robes as the rest of his people though he wore a bright yellow sash across his waist apparently a badge of office. He was incredibly tall and rather broad with stoop in his step and a tense look all over his body as if someone had tried to force eight feet of bureaucrat into a six foot frame. "I don't care who you are get out of here right now!" He bellowed.

Chief Beifong scowled and crossed the room quickly. "We're investigating an attack on the Beifong estate, now you can either get out of our way or we can start making your job really hard."

The Foreman gnashed his teeth and grunted heavily before he finally obliged her. "What do you need?"

"Were you in charge here a few days ago?" Mako asked.

"Yeah, I've been working this job for the last twelve years." He answered before his faint grey eyes narrowed into a sharp squint. "Loyally."

"Be that as it may we're taking you to the station to answer a few questions." Lin said commandingly. She stood there calmly with her arms crossed but Yuma noticed Mako flexing and unflexing his burnt arm as if preparing it for a bout of firebending.

"Am I under arrest?" Yuma asked dryly.

"No." Lin answered cautiously.

"Even if I don't want to go?"

"No." she replied again sharply. Yuma took a long sigh and approached them with his hands passively at his sides.

After Bolin had radioed in to his teams they departed for the guard's compound. Specifically, the interrogation chambers. Yuma sat heavily on the too short chair. One of its legs had been made just a centimetre too short so he could never sit quite comfortably. It didn't seem to bother him.

"Sooo….How long am I going to sit here, not being arrested?" He said casually, reclinging back in the chair until the weight of it was on the two, even legs. "Because the Zaofu Charter of Fair Conduct says I can't be kept for more than twenty four hours without charge."

"Look buddy, we just have a few questions." Bolin said with a kindly air as he sat down. He pushed a cup of tea across the table and took a sip of his own.

"Ask them." Yuma groaned.

Mako didn't take up the chair next to his brother "We've got men looking into your air-traffic records." He said leaning across the table. "But why don't you save us the time and tell us if there are any…..irregularities."

"Of course there are irregularities." Yuma snapped, lurching forwards in his chair until he was a hair's breadth away from Mako's face. To his credit the officer didn't flinch or even break his glare. "Since the Earth Kingdom went belly up our traffic average has been up two hundred percent."

"Well I'm sorry to hear that." Mako said with a sarcastic little half a smirk. "But unless you happen to recall a really important irregularity you _are _going to be under arrest and you _are _going to see cramped little rooms like this for a long while."

Yuma huffed and looked around, as if expecting to find some sort of answer laying around in the sparse, entirely metal room. "Fine, I took a bribe." He said slowly. "The day Kuvira showed up some rich guy shows up demanding to skip the flight plan and take his sky-yacht out of the city. I figured he had some kind of problem with her being here and he was trying to get away, for ten thousand yuans I figured it couldn't be much harm."

"Thank you sir, that was a big help." Bolin said reassuringly. "Can you describe him for us."

"He was in a hooded cloak, all I really saw was this long catfish mustache, he seemed pretty short, that's about all I know."

"Really, that's all?" Mako asked.

"Yes." Yuma almost spat back at him.

"Short, moustached, well I think you can sit here until we find him, then." Mako said as he made for the door. "Come on Bolin we're leaving." Bolin followed him to the door and as soon as Mako knocked against the door Lin retracted it into the walls.

"Rode him pretty hard in there." Lin commented. "Think there's any more we can sweat out of him?"

"He has to know what the yacht looked like at least, where it's berthed." Mako replied confidently.

"Whilst you were in there some of Bolin's guys found a lead, we're checking it out now."Lin stated bluntly.

It wasn't a long journey out to the lead. High up in the windy night there was a penthouse jutting out of downtown Zaofu. All the way at its base Kimwei's group contending with a rather surly doorman stood underneath a lamp pole.

"What's going on here!?" Lin demanded the moment she appeared.

Kimwei approached her nervously at first, as though he expected the formidable chief to snap at him. "We found a log for a private airship, registered to this location."

"And as I have been trying to tell these cadets they aren't allowed into Timur Towers without a resident's invitation." The doorman protested. When Lin shot him a withering look, the sort that normally put Triads in a talking mood he stood his ground.

"We don't have time for this." She declared and promptly wrapped him to a lamppost with a length of cabling.

"Was that legal?" Kimwei whispered to Bolin.

"Maybe. Either way I'm not going to ask." He whispered back.

The building's foyer was mostly deserted aside from a teenage couple sat on the arm of a sofa. Both boys hopped off the minute green guard's uniforms presented themselves.

"Okay, guys start talking to tenants I want to know if anyone suspicious has been in or out here recently." Bolin commanded. "Kimwei, you made the lead, you should see it through." He said at the periphery of the elevator doors as they dinged open. "You can ride with us."

It was tight, and uncomfortable squeeze into the otherwise luxurious elevator. Except for Lin, the spiked elbows of her armour managed to afford her a certain amount of space in the slightly jostling box all the way up to the twentieth floor.

With a bit of cajoling from Lin's metalbending the ornately decorated doors to the penthouse swung open. The interior was abandoned, and it looked to be for some time. Furniture was covered over in tarps and dust had settled on top of that and small motes of dust caught the midday sun through the back windows. Dust and dirt and mildew had gathered on both sides of the windows and the fridge hung open, empty and inactive.

"Someone must have one big budget if they can afford to _not _live in a penthouse." Bolin commented as he surveyed the unused rooms. In the centre of the penthouse was a helical staircase up onto the roof.

"Unless this place is even swankier than it looks I'm guessing the airship is gonna be on the roof." Kimwei said as he made for the stairs. At the top of it he pushed a hatch up and open and climbed up onto the roof.

The rest soon followed onto the roof, a flat black expanse of tarmac that presented almost the entire city of Zaofu beneath them. And sitting on a landing pad, lashed to the ground by a series of metal cables was a Zaofu Inhouse Custom performance air-yacht. She had a rich emrald envelope and a sleek, streamlined cockpit made of lightweight aluminium and a pair of large boxy engines on either side of the gondola jutting from either side of it.

"Whew." Kimwei said as he approached it. "This baby could definitely get you to Tu Zin in a hurry." He walked over the airship's hatch and tried to open it. In the near total silence of the landing pad they could hear a heavy detonator pin slid out of place and rattle against the floor of the airship interior. A heartbeat later the airship exploded. Flaming shrapnel flew towards them. At the last moment Bolin was able to throw up a barrier of earth to deflect the blast.

"Kimewei!" He yelled and hopped over the barrier. A blackened skeleton was scorched into the ground. He staggered backwards in shock until he collided with Mako.

"Bolin I'm sorry." The elder brother said as he tried to hold onto him.

"He was going to be an instructor." Bolin sobbed between ragged breaths. "He wouldn't even have been up here if I hadn't taken him."

"You're never the same after you've lost your first officer." Lin said as she put a hand on his shoulder. "But this is when you know whether you want to be a leader or not." She said almost softly. "So how are you going to handle this, Bolin."

"We're going to find whoever did this." Bolin quaked as his hands balled up into white knuckled fists. "Whatever it takes."

Bolin was angrier than Mako had ever seen him on the elevator down.

"I'm sorry sir, we couldn't find anything." A cadet said from the middle of the three cadets still with them. "Where's Kimwei?" She asked.

"Kimwei's…." His anger crashed back in on itself until all he could display was naked sorrow. "Kimwei's dead." He stood there dumbly as the loss went across their face and then spoke again. "But we're going to find whoever's behind this I swear."

"What's our next step?" The cadet asked.

"Su said we should do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this. Well we're going to do whatever it takes to get a name out of Yuma." He answered coldly.

There hadn't been much to get in the way of Bolin as he made his way into the bowels of the station like a human rockslide. "Bolin, wait up!" Mako called as he tried to keep up. "Just because Su said we could do anything doesn't mean we should."

"If Yuma knew about that bomb he's a murderer." Bolin spat at the periphery of the door to the interrogation cell. "He's got to pay for what he's done."

"I'm not opening that door until you promise me you won't lay a finger on him." Lin said gruffly, with her arms crossed. She didn't back down no matter how hard Bolin snarled.

Bolin punched the wall in a huff and then took a low, deep breath. "Fine. Fine. I…shouldn't have let it take me that far anyway." He said, ashamed.

"It'll be alright, Bo, we'll be right next to you." Mako said gently. He nodded to Lin who finally agreed to open the hatch.

"Spirits." Lin breathed as the door retracted into the walls. Yuma was sat there, slumped forwards on his uneven seat. His eyes hung open. They were glassy and empty and filled red with burst blood vessels. There wasn't a scratch on him but all the same Yuma was dead.


	8. Chapter 8: The Silver Macabre

The morgue of the Zaofu Security Force was not normally a particularly busy place. The dead would still be dead tomorrow, after all. The death of Yuma would not prove to be such a case.

"Officer Mako!" Doctor Fang, the mortician said as the Captain in question entered the room, a half second after Chief Beifong. "Good to see you. Both of you I mean."

"Thanks Doctor." Mako answered politely. "What do you have for us this time?"

"Well this one didn't take too long, your poor dope died of mercury in his system." Fang said with a brisk sigh.

"Just like Korra." Bolin gasped.

"Hold on." Lin said with a sceptical wave of her hand. "Korra was able to fight for minutes, with mercury poisoning Yuma didn't even look like he got off the chair."

"He didn't "Doctor Fang said direly as she handed them the reports. "And I didn't say mercury poisoning. Based on the sheer amount of mercury in Foreman Yuma's system and its concentration in the muscles, heart and lungs and the immense damage to those areas…. I would say that whoever killed him metalbent the mercury in his body to simultaneously paralyze him and crush his cardiovascular system."

Mako had been stood in a room full of embalmed organs for a few minutes now but it was that news that sucked the colour out of his skin.

"Korra is not going to take this well." Lin said as she collected the papers.

The guest house Korra and Asami had been living in for the past week loomed before them now. What should have been just another meeting with his friends instead filled Bolin with a nervous lump in the pits of his stomach.

"How are we going to break this to her?" Bolin asked nervously.

"Korra's a big girl, she can handle it." Lin answered as she knocked on the door.

"Oh hey guys." Asami answered as she appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in her preferred combat outfit, or at least most of it. She had forgone her shoes and left her hair down and her jacket open. Her smile bounced off the worried frown the brothers wore and the little pout Lin had as she averted eyes. "What's going on?" She asked pensively.

"We need to talk to Korra." Lin said quickly. With a sombre nod Asami led them through to the living room.

"What's the matter guys." Korra asked as she ran through the corridor to meet them. "Did your case turn up something that needs some Avatar muscle." She said with a proud flex of her bare arms.

"Not exactly." Mako said nervously.

"What's wrong?" She asked, an answer was not forthcoming. "Guys, whatever it is just tell me."

"Someone we took in for interrogation was killed in the Zaofu Security Building." Lin explained direly.

"I'll get my glider." She said easily as she moved towards the staff propped up by the coat racks.

"Someone used mercury to kill him." Lin finished.

Korra froze in her tracks, nearly every muscle in her body pulled itself as tight as iron as she stood there paused. Her mouth was slightly open as if to gasp but her breath failed her for a moment.

"Korra, honey." Asami said as she rushed over to her. "It's okay, you got past this once." She said tenderly.

Slowly Korra unwound herself, though not fully, her fists remained clenched tight and trembling at her sides with small wicks of flame flaring through her fingers. Asami could feel her heating up under her hands until her shoulder was almost scorching to the touch. She moved again for the staff and grasped it tightly. "I'm going to see Su, I can't just sit back whilst your murderer is on the loose."

"Korra, there's no reason to think the person who did this was the same person who poisoned you." Asami said as she followed after the irate Avatar.

"It doesn't matter." Korra growled back, though beneath her anger Asami could still hear the slightest quiver of fear that she couldn't quite force down. "I'm not going to let anyone else suffer what I suffered." She said boldly. For once Lin didn't even attempt to stand her ground and instead moved out of the way as quickly as she could.

"I say we should take up Bolin's suggestion and start preparing lava fields outside the city." Kuvira suggested as she traced her fingers over the perimeter of Zaofu in map form across the table of Su's office. "There's no way Rhee can maintain an air fleet, he won't be able to touch us."

"No, that land is being used to grow new crops for the refugees." Su explained.

"We'll all be refugees if Rhee makes it into the city, we can sort out a food shortage afterwards." Kuvira answered in response.

"Perhaps roof gardens, or hydroponic stations could be set up?" Bataar suggested meekly from the sidelines.

Whatever Su was about to say had been cut short by the almighty clang of her doors being knocked open. In the freshly opened doorway Korra appeared and the short walk into the Beifong Mansion had done nothing to calm her down.

"Korra, what's the matter?" Su asked as the Avatar tromped through her office.

"Someone in Zaofu is using mercury to murder innocent people." She stated direly. She threw the report onto the table, upsetting the precisely laid pins on her strategy map. Su Yin and Kuvira both grew more and more visibly disgusted as they quickly glanced over the report.

"Well Korra, there's not much else we can do." Kuvira said almost gently. "Zaofu was built on metalbending, half the people in this city could be the killer."

"Besides, mercury has been a controlled substance ever since your encounter with the Red Lotus." Su Yin remarked. "If they managed to get this much mercury without the guard knowing I doubt we could track them any time soon, with the state the city's in."

"Not so mother." Bataar said as he peered at the report. "That much mercury would be too dangerous and too conspicuous to fly into the city it would have to come from somewhere within Zaofu, and the only place with enough of the stuff is the liquid mirror telescope in the Zaofu Observatory.

"And why would an astronomer be in the Security Building." Asami asked pointedly.

"Well, there's Professor Hamone." Kuvira interceded. "He designed and built the observatory's main telescope but he was also scientific advisor for the security force's laboratories."

"We can't just arrest a man for that!" Mako protested.

In return Korra gave him a withering glare and then looked back to Su Yin. "This is your city, Su. What do you think?"

Su Yin paused for a moment. "He's been bending mercury for years and he has the clearance." She said a bit hesitantly.

"And he's been a loyal supporter of Zaofu for years mother!" Bataar protested. "He taught me physics and he worked on the radio network with dad and me."

There was an uneasy silence in the office as Su Yin thought of an answer. "I'm sorry Bataar but he's the only person we know who fits the bill." She paused for a moment and then turned to face her son. "Go with them, if Hamone is innocent you can help prove it."

Bataar and Kuvira shared a stunned look for a moment before he answered. "Thank you, mother. I'll….I'll do my best."

"If he's guilty he's going down, it's that simple." Korra fumed and then left for the exit. Bataar and Kuvira exchanged a quick kiss before the young engineer ran out after them.

The doors closed again and this time it was only Kuvira and Su Yin in the room for the first time since she came home to Zaofu. Kuvira brushed past the older woman and tried to look as if she was deep in thought about the potential lava field she had set up in bright orange pins around Zaofu on the war table, taking a pin out of the map, moving it a half a centimetre and then putting it back down.

Su let out a long, slow sigh before she turned vaguely towards Kuvira's direction. "First Aiwei, then the Earth Empire and now Hamone, Zaofu must look like some sort of…..mother of monsters to the rest of the world." She said sadly as her eyes turned to the spotless model of her proud city and its long lost domes. As the sun streamed in through the windows behind her Kuvira could finally study all of the new worry lines to the side of her forehead and the new splashes of white at the roots of her hair. She hadn't found the time to treat her hair, leaving it limp and lifeless over one half of her face.

Kuvira could have guessed that if Su was talking to anyone else she would have been named directly in that list. She looked towards Su for a moment and her lips parted as if she went to speak before she pursed them closed. Kuvira repeated that a few times and then finally she spoke. "I remember the Aiwei case. You and the Avatar must have personally questioned everyone on the force." She said slowly, gently, before she turned to face Su Yin head on. "Except me."

Su Yin chuckled half-heartedly "I knew you wouldn't do anything to hurt me." She said emptily. "I knew you wouldn't do anything to hurt me." She repeated quieter, under her breath.

"I just….." Kuvira looked away for a moment, she pulled her whole body tense before she could finally muster up the energy to say what she need to say. "I never thought to say thank you for that and I just-."

A single raised hand was enough to silence the former Great Uniter. "What's done is done Kuvira." Su Yin said, tiredly.

The Hamone estate sat at the far end of a Cul-de-sac of opulent houses on one of Zaofu's outer platforms. Team Avatar along with Bolin's cadets approached Hamone's rather unusual house, a single large dome with each panel a slightly different shade of stained green glass in the centre of a circular garden decorated with topiaries shaped into different periodic elements. As their group approached Bolin ordered his men into a circle around

"Korra, please, let me talk to him first." Bataar pleaded again as they ducked into cover behind a well sculpted piece of shrubbery.

Korra scowled at him for five incredibly intimidating seconds before she answered him. "Fine, you've got one shot to talk it out and then we're going in." She said with a huff.

Bolin muttered something into the radio box at his hip and then turned to face the rest of the group. "The cadets are all over the perimeter, nothings getting in or out."

"Thanks Bolin." Korra said more gently.

"Don't worry kid, I'll be right next to you." Lin said as she hurdled over the topiary to stand beside her nephew. It was a short walk across the estate's modest garden only made longer by Lin's insistence on keeping Bataar near a piece of cover, even if it was just the cover of potted plants.

Built into the curve of the dome was a single circular door of emerald stained glass which slide out of the way with a slight pneumatic hiss.

Lin had entered a great many homes in her time on the force, from hovels in Dragon Flats to mansions in the Republic Old Quarter and none of them were anything like Hamone's home. In an unbroken circle around the perimeter of the dome were low metal benches, and small bonsai trees and low little book cases. In the centre was a bizarre super structure about three floors high. It was made up of a load of small platforms arranged in a square and on each platform was a kitchen or a bedroom or a study or anything else that might go into a house and all of it arranged around the apparatus of his own private liquid mirror telescope, including a huge glass orb filled with liquid mercury. And sat in the shadow of the superstructure was Hamone.

He wore a black cloak over his steel grey robes with the hood all the way up and his face hidden in shadows.

"Professor!" Bataar yelled. He went to run over to his old mentor. A quick hand from Lin stopped him in his tracks.

"Professor Hamone, we have reason to believe you're guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder." Lin declared, loudly but calmly.

"They just want to ask a few questions." Bataar interjected.

Slowly and stiffly Hamone stood up, he was still half hidden in the shadow of his hood but he had Hamone's slim build and his stooped shoulders, and his fire nation yellow eyes were just about visible as well as a long catfish moustache.

"So ask them." He said quietly, and with a soft coughing that carried across the wide open floor of his home. "Excuse the cough, just feeling my age."

"Are you alright professor?" Bataar asked.

"Fine, like I said I'm just getting old, you know."

Bataar's eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "That is not Hamone's voice." He whispered sharply.

"Go get the Avatar, kid." Lin said as she balled her hands into tightly wound fists. The blades in the gauntlets of her armour began to descend.

"Chief Beifong." The impersonator announced with a mocking sort of tone as he stood up straighter. "I think you're overstepping your jurisdiction a bit aren't you?"

"Su authorised me to get to the bottom of things by any means necessary." She answered as she assumed a fighting stance. "And that's what I intend to do."

The last thing Bataar saw before he ran out of the dome was Hamone's impersonator shattering the globe of mercury and bringing it down on Lin like a tidal wave.

"Avatar!" Bataar yelled as he ran across the garden and back to the rest of the group.

"Where's Lin?" Asami asked as she stood up out of their foxhole.

"There was this guy pretending to be Hamone, Lin was going to fight him." Bataar answered frantically. "But he had this great big globe of mercury I-"

"Let's go." Korra said simply as she stood up. Her hands were trembling and there was the slightest glimmer of a tear in her eye before she rode over to the door on gouts of flame and jets of air. Mako picked Asami up and bounded after the Avatar with his own jets of fire.

"Qua-Mei, Toma I want that perimeter tight, we're going in." Bolin commanded into his radio before he stood up and looked over to the perimeter. "Bataar, stay here and keep your head down." He commanded before he hopped onto a stone platform and rode it over to the door.

Korra kicked the glass door down to shards of glass and then bounded through the breech. Korra froze as she saw Lin desperately fighting back a tidal wave of silvery metal. She could barely breath for a moment before a tendril of silver sliced through the air towards her.

"Stay back!" Korra screamed and punched back with a blast of fire.

"Careful!" Lin yelled as she diverted a wave of metal. "This guy's untouchable." She said as she launched shards of metal at the professor standing inside a hydra of shining liquid metal. He rapidly ducked and dived out of the way of each blade, in the process he contorted his limbs into unnatural angles, emphasised by a sick crunch with every movement.

"You should listen to your friend Avatar." The imposter declared "I doubt the world can take another three years without The Avatar." He cackled hoarsely.

"Dodge this!" Mako said as he wound through the motions and shot a bolt of lightning towards the man. Ribbons of mercury absorbed the lightning bolt and conducted it out of the way in a single fluid moment almost reminiscent of northern waterbending.

"Sorry, but some has-been pro-bender isn't going to cut it." He answered and then launched a powerful wave of mercury towards the police captain.

Mako gasped as the silver tide ruched towards him. At the exact right moment Bolin rolled into the way and raised a slab of earth. "Got your back bro." Bolin said as he melted the slab into a lave and began whirling it towards the mercurybender.

"I'll show him has-been." Mako said as he grit his teeth and released a rapid flurry of fire punches.

Between Mako and Bolin assaulting him from the flanks and Korra and Lin attacking him head on Asami was able to sneak around the back of the superstructure and leapt at him with her shock-glove crackling. His body spasmed for a moment and there was a high, inhuman screech that rang in their ears. But he didn't fall over.

"Oh your toys aren't going to cut it." He answered in a weak, distorted voice before he prepared a glaive of liquid mercury and levelled it at her face."

"Asami, No!" Korra yelled as she jumped between them and shot a lump of metal at him. There was a sick crunch and his head jerked back father than anyone's head could ever hope to and survive. Korra's stomach wrenched as she looked at his horribly twisted neck. And then it slowly clicked back into place. There was a low acoustic whining coming out from under his mask before he spoke.

"Well, I suppose there's no point bothering with this whole routine." He said in a crackling voice as he released the clasp of his cape. As the cloth fluttered to the floor the entire group was struck silent. Metal braces and walking frames all over his body just about held him rigid. Attached to a cracked neck brace was a speaker connected to a radio box. His face had been smashed in by Korra's last attack but he did not bleed, simply drooled as his broken jaw hung open. His skin was pallid, waxy and shrivelled aside from a pink dusting of burnt blood vessels at his extremities. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy and all over his body bulging veins sat heavily under his wax-paper skin.

"Hamone!" Bataar yelled as he ran into the room.

"Stay out of here kid!" Lin yelled.

"No." Hamone's speaker said. "It is time you learnt what is to come." He said as the corpse twisted with obviously inhuman movements now that he had abandoned even the pretence of life.

"What did you do to Hamone?" Asami asked from side lines.

"Hamone looked at what he did to you, Avatar and he couldn't take it. He abandoned the Red Lotus, just like Zaheer." The voice grew more incensed even as Hamone's head listed to the side. "But we found a way for Hamone to contribute to the cause once again."

"Why would you do this to him?" Bataar demanded.

"Yuma was a trusty hireling, good loyal, gave you the slip in the interrogation but eventually he would falter. We needed someone with access to the security building and my old master fit the bill." The corpse said. "Besides we needed somewhere to keep the mercury."

"What do you mean?" Korra asked.

"Oh spirits, no!" Asami exclaimed as the veins beneath Hamone's skin began to pop up under his skin. Sharp, mocking laughter rang out from the speaker as he reached critical mass. Hamone's body exploded into wet and ragged tatters of dead flesh and bloody mercury.

"Get down!" Lin commanded as she tackled Bataar to the ground. A moment too late, a blob of mercury had collided with the side of his face. He was already groaning on the floor, shocked by the impact. He had come out in a cold sweat before he turned to splutter out a loose slick of vomit and his right eye had been filled with burst blood vessels.

Lin pulled the mercury off of his face with her metalbending and pulled him up. "Come on kid, Su 'll kill me if you don't come back in one piece." Lin said, her voice rich with worry as she tried to pull his shaking body up to standing.

Su and Kuvira were sat quietly in her office when the downwash of an airship coming in for a medical landing. The two of them looked out of the back window to see a craft painted in the white and blue medical livery of an air ambulance come down for an emergency landing on the Beifong estate.

Kuvira and Su ran out to the landing site as the ramp at the back of the ship opened up. Out piled Korra and Asami followed by Mako and Bolin. Su's heart clenched as she waited to see whether it was her sister or her first son. At last Lin came out of the back of the airship and kept a pace with Bataar groaning on a gurney.

"What happened!?" Su screamed as she ran over to meet them.

"Red Lotus jumped us, Lin pulled the metal off him and I tried healing him." Korra reported.

"Ku-Ku" Bataar groaned as his fiancé barged her way to his side.

"I'm here Bataar." She said tenderly as she took hold of his hand. His grip was weak, barely able to cling onto her hand.

"I'm sorry." He just about managed to say before he slipped into unconsciousness.


End file.
